


Shovels and Dirt

by bellefire



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Creeperwolf peter but he is kinda ok?, Dreams, Humor, Lots of side pairings, M/M, Magical stiles, Murder, Mythology - Freeform, Nemeton shenanigans, Night Terrors, Nogitsune Stiles, Not Beta Read, Oblivious Stiles, Pining, Spirits, Tattooed Stiles, Violence, actually a weird mix of the two, canon divergent after 3b, don’t tell the sheriff, kate never comes back because I have a soul, slow-burn Sterek, small (?) amounts of crime, stiles is derek’s anchor, the mother-loving apocalypse probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2018-09-21 20:46:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 58,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9565739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellefire/pseuds/bellefire
Summary: The nogitsune’s power doesn’t leave Stiles after the spirit is defeated.  No, it seems Stiles was changing and knowing what that darkness did to his friends he refuses to put them in danger again.  He leaves without a word.  Now in a new city with not quite new friends Stiles realizes no one can run forever.  Because family doesn’t back down and also, yeah, that fuckin’ tree really is talking to him.





	1. All My Friends Are Heathens

 

Seattle lived up to Stiles’ expectations in two ways: so much rain, like, perpetually pruned finger tips and untamable hair amounts of rain and also great coffee.  Great coffee was, well, great.  Especially when a person, or non-person depending on how you looked at it, has a vested interest in not doing a hell of a whole lot of sleeping.  His eyes ache all the time now, a deep pain that pulled sharply into the back of his skull.  The chilly air helped to ease it a microscopic amount—nature’s own cold compress. Days like today, rainy, bitter cold, and blurry around the edges were the days Stiles felt most like himself.

Stiles drums his fingers along the coffee shop’s counter, an impatient familiar rhythm.  He’s always been a kinetic guy.  Somethings never change; others have no choice in the matter.

“Sorry about the wait, here’s your go-cup!”  A cheery little redhead deposits a large Styrofoam cup of wickedly strong black coffee in front of him.  He used to take it with cream and half a dozen other artificial sweeteners.  See, change.

The smile he musters for her in return is pathetic but Stiles figures it’s the effort that counts, “Thanks.”

He turns on his heel after stuffing a few worn dollars more than necessary into the tip jar ignoring the eyes he knows are boring into his back.  Supernatural creatures, ya can’t live with ‘em and ya just can’t live with ‘em.  Because they have a tendency to _kill you_.  Or try very hard to kill you.  The sensation of being watched follows Stiles out of the shop and onto the dismal busy street.  Stiles absently tugs up the collar of his leather jacket a little higher and pulls his scarf a little tighter seemingly against the cold rather than to cover his face more.

They, whoever they are, feel like wolves.  Stiles can sense these things now, whether it was from his constant exposure to his fuzzy friends or the, uh…other thing he wasn’t really sure.  Doesn’t much care either.  These wolves were not friendly.  He is being stalked like prey.  Stiles shakes his head stifling a chuckle in his red scarf.  He finishes his coffee far too fast before dumping the cup in a street bin.  The hot liquid sloshes around his empty stomach uncomfortably when he turns into a bleak alley shaded even darker by fire escapes dripping water.  His tails— _ha_ , still got it Stilinski, follow him dutifully bringing the smell of what Stiles instantly recognizes as old blood with them.

“Hey there, pretty boy!  Where you going in such a hurry?”  A rough voice growls.  Another voice cracks up like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

Canting his head, Stiles turns around slowly, he looks them up and down.  Their faces are in transition, definitely werewolves, both have damning blue eyes and matching fanged grins.  It was times like these Stiles wondered about whether the beacon of the supernatural in his hometown had been the nemeton or Stiles himself.  No matter what he did trouble found him.  Or maybe it was simply once you have your eyes open to the world as it really was they could never be shut.  Eyes were supposed to be doors right?

A coolness from around his heart flows over Stiles.  He smiles a smile that is not his own at his would-be attackers, “When is a door not a door?”

Twin looks of confusion flicker over their feral faces.

“That’s not actually the question I was going to ask.  Weird shit slips out sometimes.  I’m admittedly a work in progress.  It’s important to accept these things.  What I wanted to ask was: do you really think I’m pretty?  Because I thought I had this roguishly handsome drug dealer vibe going on.  Not that I’m trying, ya know?  Never mind.” Stiles waves his hands—dismissive, “I’ll take pretty.”

The werewolves glower at him, aware they’re being made fun of.  Sinister howls shake the alley way.  Stiles rolls his eyes.  In a blink the wolves rush him all claws, teeth, and frothing.  Scott never frothed, Stiles idly notes as the cold in him grows stronger and pools down his arms.  He would like to think that was due to Stiles’ excellent werewolf tutelage.  Couldn’t have been Derek’s.  Derek might have frothed, Stiles remembers avoiding looking at his mouth at all costs. 

At all costs.

The wolves never reach Stiles.  Black smoke wraps around their legs, arms, throats, it crawls inside their lumbering bodies through mouths open mid-scream.  They drop, dead before they hit the ground leaving pale corpses with hollow eyes.

Stiles gasps pushing up the sleeves of his jacket.  Crimson circular sigils stand in stark contrast to the paleness of skin, the sigils are burning like fresh brands.  The sigils always burned when he used his abilities—reminders to be careful on most days.  On the worst days the magical marks were the only things keeping him… _Stiles_.  Caught between the heat of his skin and the cold Stiles shivers, Scott wouldn’t have approved of what he’d just done but he finds it hard to care.  He doesn’t spare the bodies a second glance before leaving the alley carrying more energy now than when he entered it.

 

Here’s the thing about being a nogitsune, an almost nogitsune?  Point is it’s not like being possessed.  There are no whispers in his ears, no bandage-wrapped monsters controlling him, his darkness is his own.  The voice in his head is his own and Stiles sometimes wishes it wasn’t.  That way he could at the very least blame his urges on something else.  He can’t.  This is who he is now.  Not void, full.  Full of a brand new being begging to be let loose off the leash.  Power in whatever form wants to be used.  It’s a constant struggle.  Stiles is aware that he is losing.

Stiles traces his path “home” without having to look up twice.  Beacon Hills hasn’t been home for over a year, though never in a million years would he have thought he would end up here.  The bookstore is painfully old fashioned.  Dusty windows betrayed the open sign hanging by a thread on the door.  Above the store are two apartments, one belonged to Stiles, the other to the little second story building’s owner.  Stiles worked at the store Monday through Saturday in return for room and board.  His extra cash came from the woman who helped him get here in the first place.  The very same woman who is currently blocking his way because she’s leaning against the door holding a cardboard box in her hands with a vaguely irritated look on her face.  Stiles always thought the claw scars across her throat made her look even more untouchable in that warrior princess sort of way.

“Braeden.”  Stiles nods trying for cool.

Braeden scoffs, “I have something new for you to look at.”  She shakes the box at him, “Duke in?”

“Yeees?  How long have you been waiting out here?”

“Not long.”

“You still hate being alone with him don’t you?  How did you work with him before I got here?”  Stiles doesn’t quite snicker.  He moves around her to reach the handle and gets an elbow to the ribs in place of an answer.  Which was fair, doesn’t stop him from swearing out loud and glaring at her. 

Braeden stares impassively back.  Her box gets shoved in his face, Stiles pretends almost dropping it is a purposeful flailing of limbs.

The door isn’t open a crack when a low melodious voice in an accent Stiles has never been able to place calls out, “Language, Mr. Stilinski.”

Stiles stumbles in with Braeden not far behind.  Bells over the door jingle pleasantly and the smell of old books intermingled with sandalwood tint the air.  Robert Johnson faintly plays over a radio beneath the cashier counter despite Stiles’ best efforts to rig a real speaker system.  The store is small, but the rows and rows of book shelves make the place feel bigger than it was.  Deucalion, aka Death The Destroyer of Worlds, aka The Demon Wolf, sits cross-legged on the floor surrounded by stacks of donated books and a price gun.

Braeden can’t be blamed for her reluctance even in the face of the soft wool sweater Deucalion is sporting.  The three of them have an odd relationship.  Stiles, Braeden, and Deucalion.  When Stiles contacted Braeden to help him get out of Beacon Hills under the radar he’d been rightfully freaked the hell out when she dropped him off on Deucalion’s doorstep.  She worked for him before, Stiles suspected through a series of complicated messages and dead drops, but she didn’t trust him.  Stiles doubted he would ever fully trust him either.  People could change, sure.  Stiles is proof of it.  However he wouldn’t exactly consider his transformation for the better.  Deucalion had helped him though, is continuing to help him.  Without Duke Stiles might’ve been driven out of his mind already.  Might’ve burned down cities for kicks.  Might’ve gone after his own loved ones.  The dark ran deep.  He wasn’t sure what he was capable of.  Duke was helping with that too, he knew a thing or two beyond anything Deaton was willing to teach him about. Aiding Stiles was maybe in a very small way a start in the direction of redemption.  Scott and Derek were the ones to let the guy go on the mere of hope of him becoming the “man of vision” he once was.  What the fuck kind of plan was that?!  A Scott McCall plan that’s what.  The first thing Stiles had said to Duke was that he’d wanted Scott to kill him.  Duke responded by saying _he’d_ wanted Scott to kill _Stiles_.  Okay, then.  Turnabout was blah blah blah.

Every now and then Deucalion bakes pastries and invites Stiles across the hall to eat.  Stiles always does.  It was all very fucking weird.

“Sorry, dude.”  Stiles doesn’t sound particularly apologetic.

Deucalion hums into his price gun seemingly more interested in changing out the roll of sticky paper than the spark turned fox spirit.  Stiles narrows his eyes at him suspiciously until Braeden shoves his shoulder forward.  A creaky wooden staircase in the back of the store leads to the second floor apartments, Stiles starts to respectfully drag Braeden up to his humble abode when Deucalion jerks his head up abruptly scenting the air.  He’s not looking at Stiles but Stiles feels looked at all the same.  Freaking werewolves.

“Trouble?”  Duke sounds vaguely amused.

“Just a couple of big bads close to home.  They, uh, won’t be an issue anymore.”  There had been a time Stiles would have twisted himself up inside over taking lives.  Even if those lives belonged to the scum of the earth just out to hurt people.  Scott had set a very noble precedent, one Stiles always fought with since the supernatural took over their lives.  He hasn’t seen or spoke to his best friend in so long, for the millionth time Stiles reminds himself it is better this way.  Safer for everyone.  One day he might even believe it.  Deucalion mulls his words over then nods getting back to his books, there’s no judgement between them.  Stiles bounds up the stairs feeling oddly better that he told someone about the wolves.

 

Stiles’ apartment is, kindly put, a goddamned disaster area.  Not to say there’s trash everywhere, there is an order to his chaos, thank you.  His problem is that he lets his research spiral out of control easily.  There’s only three rooms and a bathroom to the place so precious space is limited and most of it is covered in cork board displaying _A Beautiful Mind_ levels of crazy.  Pictures, notes, articles, and a dizzying amount of mystical mumbo jumbo covers everything.  Different colored pieces of yarn connect key pieces of information to others.  Red string, blue string, green string, strings stretched and pinned in ways that made anything he’d done at his old house look positively coherent.  An agonizing vision of his dad flashes in front of him, his old man took Stiles’ slow destruction of his room in stride.  As if his antics was par for the average teenager and not a constant source of worry and trouble for the man. Stiles grits his teeth.

Braeden isn’t fazed at the chaos.  She drags a stool over from his tiny kitchenette into his sad living room where the only piece of furniture Stiles has is his work table stacked high with artifacts and books, none of which were the kind Duke sells.  Braeden plops down on the stool making herself very much at home.  Stiles ignores her in favor of his new box.  Placing it on the only bit of open space on his table Stiles extracts a smaller wooden box from within the cardboard.  The dark wood is covered in intricate carvings.  Curiously, it’s warm to the touch.

“I like the jacket.”  Braeden says absently examining her nails.

Stiles, who knows Braeden well enough now to know to say nothing does exactly that.  He shrugs off the incriminating jacket as well as kicks his worn hiking boots toward the general direction of the door.  Braeden looks content in her full motorcycle ensemble.  One never knew when Kill Bill sirens would sound; if they ever did she was ready sans the katana.  Who knows with Braeden though.

“Reminds me of someone.”  She muses.

Of course it did.  That’s why Stiles snagged it from the lost and found at the movie theatre.  He’d been lonely and tired and the old leather almost smelled right.  The jacket was comforting and he, Mieczyslaw Fucking Stilinski, is a pathetic idiot for thinking so.

Catching a change in his mood Braeden gets up to wordlessly examine the box with him.  Sometimes she’ll talk about _them_.  Stiles pretends he doesn’t mind while she pretends she’s doing it with no ulterior motives.  Braeden would never give him up, she got too much out of him.  Besides who wouldn’t want to be around his sparkling personality and nightmare-induced hyper vigilance?  Plus he doubted she knew anyone else who could pick up what was very obviously a curse box bare-handed and shake it like a Christmas present.

“What’s inside?”  Stiles asks.

“Confidential.”  Braeden draws the word out just to annoy him because she knows that Stiles likes to know things, “That damn box became more of an obstacle than I anticipated.  My client is getting impatient.  I’ve tried every trick I know.”

Stiles smirks, “I know more tricks than you.”

“I know, fox boy, get the thing open for me and there’s seven hundred bucks in it for you.”

“A thousand.”

“Stiles.”  She warns.

“What? C’mon you don’t take jobs under six digits, you can afford it.  Besides I have a lot of sad comfort jackets to buy.  Also every time I literally smoke somebody my phone breaks, no idea why.”

Braeden stares.  Stiles stares back.  Neither say anything about the phrase “comfort jackets” actually coming out of Stiles’ mouth.

“ _Fine_.”

Stiles does not punch the air.  He does not.

Braeden huffs, “Get to work.”

Rubbing his hands together Stiles grins, little delicate wisps of black smoke trail up into the air from his hands, “Yes, m’am.”

Stiles tosses the long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing to the floor where his jacket lays, putting the impressive red symbols and lines that trail down his spine and across his shoulders to his wrists on display.  Most were circular in design, something about the circular nature of binding magic.  The sigils on his body heat him up far too warm to be comfortable for the temperature Deucalion kept the building at.  Duke won’t budge on the thermostat making Stiles believe his sadistic ways are far from being over.  Braeden, irrevocably unimpressed, saunters off to his moderately less sad but still in need of some TLC bedroom to occupy herself with Grand Theft Auto while Stiles worked.  She had her own save file—this isn’t her first rodeo.  It’s better to let Stiles do his thing distraction-free.

Magic had come easy as breathing to Stiles the first time he attempted it on a whim.  He’d never told anyone that whim had come long before he could manipulate mountain ash and the nogitsune fucked up his life.  At fifteen Stiles found a book.  A dog-eared mass-market paperback about witchcraft of the incense and crystal variety.  He’d tried a spell anyway.  Half a spell really since he hadn’t had to go all the way through with it.  The spell was for sleep.  Stiles took one look at his exhausted father pouring over another mysterious case file at the dinner table and figured what the hell harm could it do?  Candles were lit, chants were chanted, Stiles tried to not recite any lines from The Covenant.  _Wiotch_.  Things got a lot less amusing when the apple pie scented candles he bought from the dollar store began to burn brilliant bright white.  Stiles jumped back as quickly as his gangly limbs would allow, ergo not very quickly.  His favorite Nirvana t-shirt got singed.  Downstairs there was a concerning loud thump.  Thoughts of _ooooohmygawdIjustkilledmydadusingblackmagic_ ran rampant until Stiles stumbled down the stairs to see his dad face-down in a plate of kale Stiles forced him to eat snoring so loud the plate rattled.   For a long time he’d forgotten about the incident.  Pushed it aside until he left and the only clear and present danger was himself.

Stiles takes a deep centering breath.  Smoke engulfs his hands along with the box.  Each individual carving on the box is like a lock in his mind.  His own marks burn hotter the longer he works.  One by one they break open, it feels something akin to a rubber band snapping in his grip.  Sweat breaks out on his temples.  The deadly explosive kind of power is easier then detailed work that required real focus.  Stiles has ADHD, focusing is a bitch under any circumstance much less, ya know, _magic_.

 Tremors are inevitable, he tries to hide them in true Stilinski fashion.  Stilinski fashion usually involved putting all your feelings in a box then putting that box in an even bigger box and then running the box over with a truck.  Perfectly healthy.  His hands start violently shaking a few hours into the lock breaking process.  He’s so close to finishing when Braeden appears again completely disregarding Stiles’ fragile masculinity by covering his hands with her own, “ _Stiles_.”

The final lock snaps and Stiles lets the smoke dissipate and places the box gingerly on the table once more.  He looks at Braeden, not quite frowning at the worried expression on her face.

She nods toward his eyes, “Those are new.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen silver and black before.”

“Yeah, uh, i-it started a couple of weeks ago?”  Stiles mutters hyper aware his shaking hands are still being held, “Duke said they were another physical manifestation of my powers.  You know how much he like his ten dollar words…the…the curse box is open.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you going to let go of me now?”

“No.”

“Oh.  Okay.”

Braeden keeps her grip firm until his shaking totally stops.  Stiles blinks, the silver irises and surrounding black are gone but the sigils on his skin are bordering on true pain.

Her face flickers between contrition and resolve, “I have to go.”

Braeden cracks open the curse box, a pale light leeks out before she snaps it shut again satisfied with the contents.

“I’ll be back later tonight.  Get some rest, Stiles.”  A sour look twists her pretty features, “Maybe a shower.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Unrepentant, Braeden shrugs and then she’s gone.  Stiles lets his exhaustion show in the sudden slump of his shoulders.  A handful of painkillers are the only thing he can force down his throat on his way to collapsing on his futon in the bedroom.

Dreams come instantly.  They always came.  Intense and razor sharp.  The Nemeton likes to call to him every other night, at least Stiles thinks so.  He wasn’t ready to bring it up with Duke.  The sentence, “I think that fuckin’ tree is talking to me, bro.”  lead to nowhere good.  Worse yet, other voices are carried with the Nemeton’s constant presence.  Memories of people Stiles had never met but the Nemeton had.  He’s seen Derek get his blue eyes.  He’s seen Talia Hale in all her dignified beauty and grieved her loss.  His mind was either bombarded with knowledge that made him sick for knowing because he had no right or his nightmares were much more horror-filled—his body wrapped in bloody bandages until he can’t breathe, driving a sword into every member of the pack.  Slowly.  Cruelly.

Counting his fingers has become a morning ritual, before coffee and brushing his teeth Stiles has to make sure he’s actually awake.  This was his life now.  The ritual applies every time he falls asleep.  Not that he ever gets to sleep very long either. Safe to say he’s used to strange sights when he’s gasping himself awake.

However.

Peter Hale is a new one.

Stiles screams, in a manly way, and hits the floor.  Also done in a manly manner.  He counts his fingers.  Twice.

“Hmm,” Peter smirks, “That went about as well as I was expecting.” 

Blue eyes burn in the dark; they trace the markings on Stile’s shirtless body like he’s the most interesting thing Peter’s ever seen.

“I’ve been waiting for _hours_.”  Nothing like pea-coat clad melodrama first thing when you wake up.

“For what!?”  Stiles croaks, he can tell he’s only been asleep a few hours at most.  He blames himself for Peter being there in his grogginess.  While he brainstormed with Braeden about how his friends and family would look for him he never once thought about Peter Freaking Hale.  Who out of everyone was maybe the best equipped to find him.  Which he obviously did.  Awesome. 

“For your guard dog to leave.  Honestly, Stiles, you run off and your first choice among ex-psychopathic alphas is Deucalion?  I’m hurt.”

The sigh that escapes Stiles has him laying his head back down on the hard wood of his floor.  He’s gotten too comfortable he realizes.  One year and three months shot to shit.  Stiles can make the problem of Peter Hale disappear.  No jury in the land would convict him.  If anything they’d pin a medal on him and call it karmic justice.  Stiles remembers the sound the arrow made that went punched through Coach’s stomach and swallows.

Peter makes a disgusted noise, Stiles glances over to see him poking through his stuff.  Hales had no sense of boundaries.  Creeper wolf finds a beaten copy of Dune and starts flipping through it wearing a weird smile.

After another pained sigh Stiles begrudgingly climbs to his feet, “What the hell do you want?”

“That should be obvious.”  He sets the book back where he found it, between a box of opened Fruity Pebbles and a stack of video games.

Stiles eyes him warily, “Scott send you?”

“No.”  Peters says intentionally slow, “My sweet nephew was the one to ask for my assistance.”

It made sense for Scott to avoid going to Peter, but Derek?  That made even less sense.  Stiles  gives Peter a blank look, “Why the hell would Derek care so much?”

“You know, I always thought you were the smart one surrounded by turnips.  Apparently I need to revise that opinion.”  Peter says full of mocking disappointment.

“Hey—”

“Listen , little turnip, it’s taken me eight months of my precious time to track you and no small amount of money.  It’s time to come home, Stiles.”

Stiles takes a deep breath, “I…can’t.”

“Oh, sorry, did I leave out the part where you don’t have a choice?”  Peter glowers at him through clenched teeth.

Fear is a good thing, keeps you alive.  Stiles isn’t sure when he stopped being afraid of Peter.  Probably sometime when Stiles began to believe the scariest monster there was lived inside his own head.  A growl is building in Peter’s throat and Stiles does something that despite his lack of fear still makes his skin crawl, he turns his back on him.  Stiles digs through his pile of clothes at the foot of his futon and finds himself missing the hell out of mountain ash.  Werewolf pest control was so much easier when he could easily handle the stuff.  He still can but it’s hardly worth the effort.  Nobody wants to have to magically kick open their own front door every day every time they had to leave.

Stiles locates a t-shirt that doesn’t smell and pulls it on ignoring Peter huffing behind him.  Peter abandons the tough wolf routine for an attempt to play on Stiles’ guilt, “All those people you left behind are a wreck.  The good Sheriff and Derek are out almost every night looking for anything on you.  Our unflappable dear True Alpha is barely keeping a lid on things.  Personally, I would have moved on by now and respected your wishes to get out of that hell hole, understandable.”

Stiles hates Peter’s face.  It’s an oddly sincere face when he wants it to be.  Everything about Peter can soften at the drop of a hat.  The claws and teeth were less threatening than Peter Hale looking at you like he’s your friend.

“Or,” Stiles drums his fingers against his thighs, “We let the lady handle it.”

“What la—”

Peter seizes up as god-knows-how-many volts of electricity make contact with his back.  The faint hint of burning hits Stiles’ nose, as someone who intimately knows what it feels like to be electrocuted he winces in sympathy.  Braeden prowls in from the living room stun gun in hand.  Stiles was able to distract the wolf long for Braeden to be her badass self.  Of course it helps that she and Stiles had put together some sigils of her own months ago, hers looked like strangely stylized flowers on her ankles.  One to make her imperceptible to enemies and one to make her lucky in business.  Werewolves the world over should be grateful the woman was a merc for the supernatural rather than a hunter.  Then again Stiles probably wouldn’t have helped a hunter with sigils that allowed them to sneak up on people like his friends.

“Where the hell is Deucalion?” Braeden demands, she retrieves a thin wolf’s bane infused wire from her belt and starts in on securing Peter.  Stiles sort of feels bad about the resulting sizzling sound.

“He does leave the store.  I mean I’ve never seen him outside before but I can assume, like, who buys the groceries?”

“Stiles.”

“Sorry.  Peter.”  He says the name like that explains everything.

“You apologize too much.  Help me get him to the basement.”

“Yeah, alright.  Did you get my money?”  Stiles makes a cursory attempt at not sounding to eager.

Braeden pauses dragging the unconscious body at her feet, “I don’t know whether to be proud or concerned.”

“Well, I thrive on positive reinforcement.”  Stiles winks.  Peter twitches.  It’s been a productive day.

Stiles takes Peter by the shoulders while Braeden adjusts her hold on his ankles.  Not for the first Stiles curses his stairs.  Peter is freaking heavy and the stairs are way too narrow for proper body maneuvering.  They may have dented the walls with Peter’s head a couple of times.  Totally by accident.  Deucalion is standing at the bottom of the staircase when they finally reach it.  A mild look of malcontent is the only emotion on the alpha’s face.  The three of them share a short pause of awkward silence interrupted only when Peter stirs in their grasp.  They drop Peter like a bad habit so Braeden can tase the fuck out of him again.

Duke doesn’t smile, but it’s a near thing, “Apologies for my absence.  If I had known we were going to have a guest I would have greeted him properly.”

“We aren’t killing Peter.”  Stiles says as a general PSA.  He would have thought that was obvious, the looks of profound disappointment on their faces prove otherwise. Peter is an asshole but Stiles believes he would have left Stiles alone if it weren’t for…Derek.  Nope, still sounds weird.

“If that’s what you truly wish,” Duke nods, “I don’t have the cleaning supplies for the endeavor anyway.”

Stiles narrows his eyes, “Was that a joke?”

“Perhaps.”

This, Stiles decides, is what hell freezing over looks like.  He smiles so hard his face hurts.

“I was procuring something for you, see me when you’re done with the rabble.”  Ever one to make an entrance and exit, he had that in common with Peter, Duke lets them carry on alone—completely cool with a nogitsune and a mercenary hog-tying a werewolf in his basement.  Stiles wishes he could be that nonchalant.  Life goals.

The basement is warm and dry as well as spotless.  Boxes of unpacked books neatly line the walls distributed around old metal filing cabinets.  A desk is shoved in the far corner, unused with a wooden chair turned upside down on top of it.  They deposit Peter in the chair and then Braeden vanishes for a few seconds only to reappear with rope and a pair of manacles.  Stiles doesn’t ask.  He just assumes she carries that sort of stuff around with her wherever she goes.  Smart, the only thing he used to carry was a baseball bat.

Again Braeden takes care of the restraints.  Lady knows her way around some ropes is what he’s saying.  She removes the wire to rewrap it so that any unwanted twitch will be met with poisoned steel.  The Argents had nothing on her. 

Peter comes-to violently.  He thrusts around half transformed but Braeden’s work holds.

Stiles leans over him, cocky grin in place, to stare into furious glowing eyes, “Still how you thought this would go?”

Peter sneers, “Seriously!?”

“How did you find me?”  Stiles cuts to the chase.  He feels bolstered by Braeden pacing around them like a hungry lioness.

“What like its hard?”

“Don’t you quote Legally Blonde in my presence, you are unworthy of Elle Woods.”

“I’m _trying_ to do the right thing here.  As hard as that is to believe.”

Stiles laughs in his face, “Out of the goodness of your own heart?”

“No, I told you,” Peter’s tone turns exasperated, “Derek…Look, the Whittemore kid is around here, yes?  That’s how I found you.  You, Stiles, a teenager with no money who’s never been out of the state vanishes after being controlled by an entity that used you to murder innocents.  Then an old classmate of yours with a similar history and plenty of disposable income suddenly moves to Seattle without informing any of his old buddies.  Stiles you inspire an irritating amount of loyalty in people but I doubt the pretty gun for hire here liked you enough to set you up for free.”

“…You could have just said you followed Jackson and saved like five whole minutes of our lives, dude.”

Peter growls.

Stiles and Jackson have a very fragile friendship but it’s a friendship none the less.  After Stiles got his mind back he sent Jackson a message through Facebook just to talk to someone who wouldn’t treat him like he was made of glass.  The other boy responded a day after with a phone call.  Jackson had done the same thing Stiles was gearing up to do.  A self-imposed exile.  Of course Jackson didn’t have the same growing power souring his heart however he did still have barely contained anger that was a danger for a wolf.  He showed up in the city a month after Stiles settled in.  On Tuesday they went out for coffee and once and a while Jackson will have a werewolf question that when Stiles couldn’t help him they sat around the bookstore with Deucalion and talked.  Jackson can still be an irredeemable asshole but he was a werewolf alone.  The definition of lonely.  Stiles got lonely too, turns out they were both pack animals.  Not a single soul in Beacon Hills would expect Jackson to be a person Stiles would turn to.  Except for Peter Freaking Hale.  Who was scary-smart and just as creepy as ever.

Stiles clutches the arms of Peter’s chair, a boiling anger constricts his lungs, “Stay away from him.”

“I haven’t touched a hair on his head, I’d stab myself on the hair gel.”

“A stabbing could be arranged.”  Braeden threatens sweetly.

Cocking his head Peter simply smiles, “Not in front of the children, sweetheart.”

The thought of Jackson being followed because of him, in danger, Stiles can’t help but to spill over.  Peter rears his head back in shock.  Black and silver eyes stare the werewolf down, black shadows seep from Stiles’ hands ready to surround the second he willed it.  Peter likes to say Stiles never fails to surprise him.  Creep.  He wonders how surprising Peter would be if he sent his ass to the shadow realm.  Or wherever the monster he Stiles used his powers on went. 

“Calm down, Stiles, or you’re going to disobey your own order.”  Braeden’s blunt despite the fact she’s got no problem with Stiles taking Peter Hale out of existence.  The thing is, she knows Stiles doesn’t really want to do that. 

The spell of horror over Peter’s face is broken.   He tips his head back and laughs, “Of course.  Of course!  How did I not see this?”  Peter looks at Stiles with a new intense level of interest though he sounds like he mostly talking to himself, “He was a spark, obviously, saw through things much too easily not to be.  A spark that gets possessed by an ancient and powerful dark spirit.  A spark whose original body _dies_.”

Waiting is not Stiles’ greatest strength.  He has to now because he knows Peter loves the sound of his own voice far too much to stop talking, and Stiles was curious.

“Chaos and creation all in that pale little body.  Oh, that must be tearing you apart, kiddo.  How must that feel?”

“Shitty.”  Stiles bites.

“Hm.  You know what?  I’ve had a change of heart, we can come to terms—you and I.  You don’t want to go back to Beacon Hills and you don’t want any of the Scooby Gang to know where you are.  I can roll with that.”

“In exchange for what?”  Stiles allows his anger to ebb off.

“Call it scholarly interest, you’re brand spanking new in the supernatural world.  I’m curious.”

“And you’re suddenly not worried about Derek anymore?”

“Derek’s survived most of his life without a true anchor, he’ll be fine a little while longer.”

“His anchor?  Wait, what?”

Peter looks up like he’s asking strength from the werewolf gods, “ _Turnips_.”

 

Stiles does not come to terms with Peter.  He has many years of experience on how that would be a terrible idea.  What to do with Peter is still a question that needs answering.  Braeden provides a pleasing temporary solution via a big piece of duct tape slapped on the wolf’s mouth.  Good enough for the night.  Braeden stays a little longer to make sure and practically pushes Stiles out tossing a manila envelope full of money as a goodbye.

Deucalion’s waiting outside Stiles’ apartment door holding a tray of scones.  Stiles hadn’t been around for all of Duke’s evil villain monologues, at the time he’d been busy running around trying to _save lives_.  However he had bugged the hell out of Scott for details when the imminent death crap died down.  The revenge crazy demonic werewolf terror didn’t mesh well with the Duke he knew.  This Deucalion made scones.  Nope.  Nope, he wasn’t ever gonna get used to it.  Deucalion was strange.  Stiles was stranger because he could admit to himself he did like the man.  Maybe he was just easily swayed by baked goods and accents.  Subtly, Stiles runs his thumbs over his fingertips, counting.

“I took the liberty of phoning Mr. Whittemore.  Suffice to say he isn’t pleased.”

“I can imagine.”  Once a new barista at their regular coffee place got Jackson’s order wrong.  Dying of second hand embarrassment wasn’t how he wanted to go out but Jackson’s entitled ass sure did try.  Jackson had a good reason to be upset this time.  He is going to be unbearable.

“He’ll be here in the morning.  I take it Braeden will surface again by then as well?”

Stiles shrugs and opens the door for them letting Duke go through first since he’s bearing food.  He chokes on the age before beauty comment before it can form on his tongue.  Not because he’s learned to control his mouth, like at all, but rather because those scones can just as easily disappear as they did appear.  Priorities.   Deucalion sets the tray down on the kitchen counter and locates the kettle Stiles never uses on his first try.  A box of tea Stiles doesn’t remember having makes it way next tea cups that come from literally nowhere.

“I’m afraid Hale is right.” Duke says making it clear he’s been listening in.

Stiles stuffs half a scone is his mouth and talks around it, “Peter’s right more than you’d think.  It’s awful.”

Duke levels him with a disappointed look, “I can imagine.  He’s correct about your power.  You do indeed have creative and destructive forces battling inside you.  Both your Spark and void abilities are growing, perhaps in competition to each other at a concerning rate.  Your control, however, is not.”

Stiles can’t fight him on that point.  He eats another scone.

“It’s the nature of a nogitsune to devour all else, a piece of you is going after your spark.  Have you heard the old Native American tale about the two wolves that live inside each person?”  The kettle whistles and Duke pours them both a cup of lavender tea.

“Um.  Yeah, actually.  Something about how everyone has a white wolf and a black wolf living inside of them.  Depending on which one you feed one will eventually eat the other.”   He’d read everything about wolf myths when Scott was bitten, a lot of it had stuck.

A brief smile softens Duke’s face, “ Very good.  Your problem is much the same, we can’t allow either of your wolves to consume the other.  The resulting imbalance would be catastrophic.”

“But you found something can help, right?  Right?”

Deucalion  produces a small roll of vellum from his pocket.  The vellum depicts another sigil meant for the flesh.  The mark looks very Celtic to Stiles and very complicated.  Endless knots turn in on each other in a swirl toward the center where an equal-armed cross draws his attention to four jagged symbols Stiles doesn’t remotely recognize.  At the bottom of the sheet is a Latin inscription, the word for “equilibrium” and then instructions to carve the sigil over the heart of the mark-bearer.  At least that’s the gist of it, Stiles’ Latin wasn’t the best but he’s working on it.  Strangely enough his understanding of Norse runes is better.  It’s the V’s that are actually U’s that always trips him up in Latin and all those conjugations.  Conjugations are literally the devil.

“Alright!”  Stiles drums the counter, “Let’s do it.”

Tension is hard to read on Deucalion, he’s always, _poised_ Stiles guesses if he has to pick a word.  The stiffness that shows itself in the alpha’s shoulders is his only tell, “I know application of all the sigils are painful to endure.  But this one, Stiles…the nogitsune part of you thrives on chaos, it will fight any attempts to bring balance.  Hard.”

If Stiles could see himself the way Deucalion saw him he would see a young man with messy hair and the kind of shadows under his eyes that belonged on old soldiers, he would see a face that was hardened by war and would do what needed to be done.

“I understand.”  Stiles says after the implication settles. 

“We’ll have to wait until morning.  Braeden has a neater hand than I, and we will need Mr.  Whittemore.”

Usually getting sigils felt like getting a tattoo from an inexperienced artist.  Heavy handed and pushing too deep into the skin.  Stiles never had to be held down before.  He drinks his cooling tea in one big gulp.

The nap Stiles took earlier is wearing thin.  Everything about him feels stretched-out and weak.  A water balloon holding too much water.  Stiles and Deucalion talk quietly about everything except magic until the scones are gone and the tea had done its job.  He vaguely remembers seeing Duke out like a civilized, hopefully still mostly, human and then lying down while clutching his favorite pillow to his chest.  The next moment Stiles knows he’s in a dream.

Dreams feel real.  At least they always do to Stiles.  More and more often he’s gaining awareness in his own dreams.  Half the time his brain doesn’t know the difference, the other times Stiles can navigate the signs.  Sometimes it’s glaringly obvious.  Like now.  Stiles is in the sprawling sterile white hall of the Nemeton.  Far from him is the Nemeton itself in all its oppressive glory, even farther from him is a dark-haired figure adorned in delicate silver armor with a bow strapped to her back.  Allison.  She looks untouchable.  Unbreakable.  But Allison is dead, he knows neither of those words were true.  Tears come unbidden at the sight of her.  The air is so cold the tears frost over on his face yet he’s not shaking.  Thoughts of sleep walking again out in the middle of a Seattle Autumn night filter in but are abruptly pushed aside when Stiles realizes Allison is talking. He can’t hear the words, but he can tell she’s frantic.  Stiles tries to run to her, tries to focus on her voice with all of his will.  He gets no closer, neither does the Nemeton.  Allison’s voice though, he can hear her now but not quite.  She echoes off into nothing and Stiles can’t catch the words before they’re gone.

Closing his eyes against the bright white Stiles tries to listen harder, he tries to…there’s a thrumming noise, a heartbeat.  For a moment he can’t breathe.  His eyes snap open.  All at once Allison is right there in his face, wide-eyed.  Afraid?  Not for herself.  She grabs his wrists hard enough to make his bones creak.  It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter because he hears her.  Finally Stiles can hear her.

“They’re coming, Stiles, they’re coming.  You have to listen.  Stiles, _please_.”

The ground beneath them trembles.  Stiles gets the unsettling notion the Nemeton is howling.

A different voice calls out, “Stiles… _Stiles_!” 

Stiles sucks in a sharp painful breath.  Waking up like he’s been holding his breath for minutes.  A faint tickling in his nose has him bringing up his hand to wipe at his face.  Blood—and a pounding headache to boot.

“You look like shit.”  Jackson says above him handing over a damp cloth.  Stiles would love to go off about how no one knocks on the door anymore and that normal people don’t just walk into other people’s homes uninvited, but he spent most of his teenage years with freaking werewolves who hate social norms.  Also Jackson has a key.

“I love you too, asshat.”

Jackson looks like an Abercrombie model, clean jawline, smug face, and a four hundred dollar cashmere sweater. He’s so unnecessary first thing in the morning. Everything about him begs to be punched.  Or mugged.

“What’d you dream about?”

“You.  Always.”

“That explains the nose bleed.”  Jackson is worried in that far off way of his, he’s going to let this one go.

“I liked you better as a lizard.”  Stiles groans.

“I can’t actually remember a time when I liked you at all, Stilinski.”

The faux heat of the exchange is lost as Stiles tries to get up and wobbles only to be steadied by Jackson reaching over the futon the second Stiles looks uneasy.  If Jackson subtly leeches some of Stiles’ pain, well, neither of them mention it.

“You should get a real bed instead of that piece of shit.”  The sneer Jackson sends toward Stiles’ poor ratty futon would have cleared a hallway in high school.

“I don’t think where I sleep is gonna help much,” Stiles catches sight of two Styrofoam cups of coffee on a small table by his TV, “I could kiss you.”

“Do.  Not.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m a catch.”  The headache growing fierce behind Stiles’ eyes ebbs off a bit in the wake of black as pitch caffeine. 

“Whatever.”  Jackson picks up his own cup, “So, Peter Hale is in the basement.  For fuck’s sake, Stilinski, we might as well be back in Beacon Hills.”

Stiles winces, “Sorry.”

“Not your fault, idiot.”

They end it up in the kitchenette.  Jackson finds the little roll of vellum still sitting on the counter and inspects it.  He’s a smart guy, smarter than Stiles had previously given him credit for.  Sigils were interesting to Jackson for some reason, “This the new one?  Duke said you were going to need me.”

“Yeah, and Braeden.”

As if on cue Stiles’ front door swings open, seriously no one knocks anymore, and there stands Braeden holding a shady as fuck black duffle bag.  Behind her is Deucalion with chains.  Stiles swallows.  The chains drop with clattering sound.

Jackson takes in the whole seen, has the audacity to grin, “Was this in your dream about me too?”

Stiles squints, “You are the worst person I know and Peter Hale is in the basement.”

“If you’re done flirting,” Braeden says unzipping the bag, “let’s get to work.”

 

 

 

 

_tbc_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Panic Cord

 

Stiles is very proud of the fact he only starts screaming halfway through the tattooing process. Jackson has his shoulders pinned to the floor while his arms and knees are circled in chains, Stiles is also quite proud that the cocky young werewolf is having to put quite a lot of effort into holding him down. Deucalion, who is having much less trouble, is pressing down on Stiles’ jumpy legs so he doesn’t try to curl up and roll away like the world’s most tortured turtle as Braeden carefully taps in the design of the sigil over his heart. Stiles hates needles, even after the horrors he’s seen needles are still pretty high the list of things Stiles hates. Needles are firmly above werewolf hunters but below ancient magical trees. He hates them so much more when they’re attached to a long weird stick dipped in ink while another weird stick hammers them deep into his skin. It’s a traditional Japanese way of tattooing, generally called irezumi. Braeden didn’t have to tell him that. The knowledge is already there in his head along with centuries worth of other shit floating around waiting presumably until Stiles needs it. Echoes of dark-edged wisdom. He isn’t too keen on finding out what else the nogitsune’s consciousness left behind.

  
Every other way they’ve tried to inscribe the sigils hadn’t stuck. There was a lot of painful trial and error at Stiles’ expense. Stiles can heal now and boy is he a bitter thinking about getting the crap beat out of him in Gerard’s basement and basically any other time when he was fighting for his life. Healing would’ve been pretty damn useful back then. The magic imbued into the tattooing tools can cause a permanent bleeding wound on a normal person. Technically the tools were a cursed object. Stiles wishes Braeden could have found a nifty modern enchanted tattoo gun instead. Since she didn’t Stiles suffers through two hours of his body trying to reject the magic of the sigil.

  
Stiles’ chest burns searing hot. The mix of pain and dark energy lashing out is distracting enough for him to take a few minutes to realize Braeden’s finally done. Gently she wipes off the blood from his chest revealing the swirling red lines beneath. Stiles gasps as the burning spreads through his body from his chest to his fingertips and toes. Slowly he pushes the breath he’s been holding out through his nose, the pain fades and a weight dissolves from Stiles’, hell, from his everywhere. He kind of wants to laugh but tamps down on the urge.

  
“Stiles.” Man, it’s still so weird hearing his name in that concerned tone coming out of Deucalion’s mouth, “How are you feeling?”

  
“A thousand years old.” Stiles does let out a mean little chuckle directed at himself, “That was a joke, none of you got it but trust me it was funny.” He groans dramatically and shakes the chains he’s wrapped in, “Lemme out.”

  
Jackson unbinds him with werewolf speed. Abrasions caused by the metal digging into him fade away and the new sigil stops having that freshly dragged across glass feel. Stiles stays prone on the floor but feels like everything inside him has been made forcibly upright, it’s nauseating. His morning coffee contemplates mutiny in his stomach. Okay, he can do this. Stiles waves off any help crawling on all fours he grabs onto his work table then pushes himself up all in one go. His ears buzz. The mutinous coffee grumbles. The floor might be spinning? Not good.

  
“If you faint,” Jackson says sounding bored, “I’m taking photographic evidence.”

  
Without missing a beat Stiles croaks back, “Too bad no one needs photographic evidence that you’re a dick.”

  
Jackson snorts, “He’s fine.”

  
“The finest.” Stiles confirms, his hands are still holding onto his work table for dear life.

  
“Good, put a shirt on kiddo.” Braeden throws a dark t-shirt at his head, in tiny font on the front it reads ‘nosy little fucker aren’t you’. Stiles lets it land on his head and hang there mostly because he doesn’t trust himself enough to let go just yet and he also might be feeling a little petulant.

  
Braeden continues on as if Stiles isn’t the most pathetic sight in the room, “We’re going to negotiate with Peter.”

  
Stiles blinks and gapes, he’s pretty sure all his auditory functions are working properly, “What?”

  
“We need him to call off the dogs, so to speak, this is Peter—he’s got a backup plan even for nerds like you. We have him make sure you’re not compromised then we see what else a Hale wolf is good for.”

  
“Absolutely nothin’.” Stiles sings miserably.

He wants to go off about things like negotiating with terrorists, how just yesterday giving Peter the time of day wasn’t an option. Nothing much had changed other than the time Braeden had to think.

  
“I’d like to have a few words with that asshole.” Jackson nods. Probably for things like the mind control and psychological torture of his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Stiles isn’t sure when he stopped paying attention. Also, Peter like stalked him from London. Stalking warrants at least a chair to the face depending upon the creep factor involved and Peter is like a twelve out of ten in that department. Werewolves have a penchant for following people around. Stiles is used to that due to the other Hale who scored a four on the creep factor meter lessened from a six over time only because Derek would never actually try to really hurt him but not down to the negative two Scott has because Derek is also _Intimidating_. Jackson is well within his rights to bite off a piece of their basement resident, even amongst werewolves the dude has it coming.

  
Stiles mulls over Peter’s words from the day before while Deucalion and Jackson clean up. That’s Stiles’ blood on the untreated floorboards; he thinks he should be the one mopping it up. Jackson huffs in annoyance like he’s said that out loud, turns out he did. Because she’s got a weird sense of humor and a weirder mean streak, Braeden laughs. Stiles considers sticking to his guns about not taking any deals with Peter purely to be contrary with her. It not like he’s sold on the idea anyway. He’ll listen, sure, let Braeden do the talking, most of the talking—he’s certain a fair amount of the talking will be done by her. Half, easily half.

  
Rolling his shoulders Stiles slowly feels progressively better. Good enough to pull on his shirt and even to stand on his own. Huzzah. Eventually he feels more than better, he feels amazing. Solid and centered without having to try so excruciatingly hard. A quote from one of his favorite comics rang true, _Magic, ain’t nothing it can’t do_.

Stiles tries to convince Braeden of breakfast only to get a protein bar thrown at him, he’s going to have a talk with people throwing things at him in his own damn apartment. Rude as hell. She matches his outraged expression with a glare. That talk is happening never. The woman is a firm believer in ‘no rest for the wicked’ when she allows herself to be her natural state of evil.  
Stiles eats the damn protein bar with every ounce of aggression he has.

  
Deucalion has the same amount of interest in the second interrogation as the first, meaning none whatsoever. Stiles thanks him for his help, hoping his tone means more than the words. The alpha looks him over something like Melissa would after he and Scott did something stupid albeit much more clinically. He hums, satisfied the sigil took and Stiles is more or less healthy. In not so many words Dukes lets Stiles know he’s going to be making it up to him. There’s been a bunch of old high school donations lately. Those are always the worst to sort through, over half are probably encyclopedias that haven’t been cracked open in fifteen years. The job required patience and the ability to stay on task. Deucalion’s natural state is also of evil.

  
To finish off the trifecta of darkness Stiles’ life now consists of Jackson swoops down like the anal-retentive bastard he is picking up the discarded protein bar wrapper and announces, “Expired.”

  
There’s a single big bite of the bar left. Stiles shoves it in his mouth and speaks around grainy chocolate flavored whey, “I’ve had worse things in here.”

  
Jackson’s ready with a thousand and one foul comebacks, Braeden slaps her hand over his mouth before any one of them can be spoken.

  
Her whisper-talk lands more on the terrifying side than the sexy, “Whittemore, if you say one word about a dick—anyone’s dick, you’ll never have to worry about your own ever again.”

  
Big bad werewolf Jackson pales but he doesn’t lose his scowl. The asshole train doesn’t stop for little ol’ things like threats of bodily harm. Stiles is an expert.

  
“Stiles, you good?” Braeden asks seriously.

  
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Really. Let’s do this.”

  
Safe to say Stiles is already over leading a procession of angry people to and from the basement and his apartment. He’s over Peter interrupting a life that perhaps isn’t totally happy but is working. Everything works. Kind of like his Jeep, everything worked until it didn’t. Stiles misses his Jeep.

  
Peter is probably missing the flaming chariot pulled by hellhounds he rolled into town on. Chances are he is not the devil, Satan in a v-neck Lydia once so aptly described, however until Stiles sees irrefutable proof or until Peter stops fucking his life up he’s gonna hold on to his belief. Devil or not, it’s hard to take Peter serious in the state Braeden left him in. The clunky Wonder Woman headphones over Peter’s ears blasting old school Britney Spears from a beat-up iPod belongs to Stiles, he didn’t notice they were gone. Happily Stiles does not own the floral scarf wrapped around Peter’s head effectively covering his eyes. Nor is Stiles responsible for the circle of mountain ash on the floor. Braeden had taken no chances. Stiles approves wholeheartedly.

  
They’re surprised Peter hasn’t budged. The duct tape on his mouth is still in place, like the dude’s got all the time in the world and is completely unconcerned about being held captive. Braeden breaks the line of ash letting Jackson roughly step in to rip off the tape, scarf and headphones.

  
Peter cringes at the sight of him, “Thought I smelled a devastating inferiority complex and knock off cologne.”

  
At the same time in order from disgusted, amused to angry, Braeden, Stiles, and Jackson defend, “It’s Armani.”

  
“Bitch.” Jackson adds spitefully and maybe Peter’s not far off with that inferiority complex observation.

  
“Sure it is.” Peter soothes.

  
Braeden pulls Jackson back by his shoulder as he readies himself to lunge, his eyes flash at her though he lets her move him away without much trouble.

  
As the cooler head forever and always Braeden gets down to business, “What happens now that Stiles isn’t going home with you?”

  
Peter cocks a smug eyebrow at her phrasing. Stiles does his best to not sink right through the basement floor.

  
“What happens?” Peter repeats.

  
Crossing his arms Stiles says, “Don’t play coy, asshole.”

  
“But I’m so good at it.”

  
Well, Stiles concedes, he’s not wrong.

  
Braeden leans in close but not too close, “Cut the crap, Hale. I know you weren’t expecting the kid to just go with you, the chloroform soaked rag in your coat pocket proves that—”

  
“You were going to chloroform me!?” Stiles yells scandalized.

  
“Well, not anymore.” Peter somehow sounds both disappointed and defensive and Stiles is contemplating bathing in bleach.

  
“And,” Braeden continues ignoring their exchange, “you might have not expected him to get one over on you but you wouldn’t totally disregard him as a threat. You know too much. So. What. Did. You. Do?”

  
Peter regards her, a bit too much like a cat for a wolf, and smiles, “Looks like we’ll be making a deal after all.”

  
Of course Peter wants his freedom, he also wants to see the extent of Stiles abilities. ‘A show’, the words accompanied with a suggestive leer. Lastly, he wants an espresso, preferably Italian roast but he’s willing to compromise. Jackson is a breath of a needle point away from punching Peter in the face. Which Stiles actually finds honestly impressive, Jackson doesn’t even have a balance sigil carved into his chest keeping him from doing shit. He just stops himself. For some reasons its Lady Gaga’s voice in Stiles’ head that chimes, ‘inspiring.’ Then again, Jackson has always been more bark than bite.

  
“For all that,” Jackson begins through clenched teeth, “you’ll what exactly?”

  
“I’ll stop the message I have queued up to Derek telling him my location, more specifically where I believe Stiles is. As soon as the Black Widow over there gives me back my phone. Might want to make it snappy, sweetheart, time’s running out, though that is your own faults.” Peter clicks his tongue like a particularly smarmy clock.

  
Braeden pulls his phone from her back pocket of her black leather pants and throws it to Stiles. The classy red leather case is not a surprise, the Bath and Bodyworks membership card is. Stiles slides the card out and into his own pocket without anyone noticing. Cracking Peter’s phone is going to be impossible, its password protected rather than pattern-locked. One required luck and persistence; the other required knowing Peter Hale. No thanks. Stiles shakes his head, they’re going to have to give Peter the phone. Magic could do the job if Stiles were better at it, as it is he breaks his own phone on the regular although that’s usually because of his nogitsune power—apparently it hates technology. His Xbox surviving this long is a miracle. One that he treasures with his entire brittle soul.

  
Stiles sighs, “Cut ‘em loose.”

  
Nobody moves.

  
“Or,” Jackson counters, “We set his ass on fire again then we can go to London. I still have a place there and its cold and rainy, just your kind of shit weather, Stilinski.”

  
They stare at Peter. The older wolf shifts uncomfortably. It’s a nice feeling. A life in London sounded awesome. Every day would be an American Werewolf in London joke. Oh the wasted opportunities.

  
“Nah,” Stiles’ smile is a little manic, “as fun as that would be.”

  
“Charming.” Peter mutters.

  
“You love it.”

  
Peter levels him with a look, “Maybe.”

  
Jackson outright growls, a deep bone-shaking noise that surprises Stiles only because he’s never heard it turned to a tone of true threat. The kanima never sounded like this. He would tell Jackson that later, sometimes the guy needs to be reminded.

  
“Dude, it’s alright. Get him out of there.” More surprising than anything, Jackson listens to him.

  
Braeden circles Peter, her right hand rests at her waist where Stiles knows she has her Desert Eagle holstered. The bullets are anti-werewolf in the extreme. Peter gives her some of the respect she’s due by keeping his hands up slightly, his movements are cautious. Stiles stumbles backwards immediately after Peter takes his phone back from where it dangled from Stiles’ fingers.  
Peter makes a show of rolling out his shoulders and cracking his neck. He hums when he finally gets to typing in his password. Stiles tracks his quick fingers, makes out ‘Laura’ before looking away. He feels sick. Curious too. He might be physically incapable of not being curious about things. Stiles doesn’t ask but knows he will eventually, some other time.

  
Peter fiddles around, the look on his face is not encouraging, “Seems we are late. My emergency message was already sent. Wouldn’t have been a problem if some people weren’t so kidnap-y.”

  
“Says the kidnapper.”

  
“Bygones, Stiles. Let me see if I can…” Peter holds up a finger silencing the room then dials a number that’s answered after the first ring, “Deeerek!”

  
Stiles’ eyes go round. Jackson says nothing about the way Stiles’ heart thunders in his chest for the same reason Stiles says nothing about the fact that brand of Armani Jackson wears is the exact brand Danny prefers. Bro code.

  
“Listen, I’m going to need you to disregard—no, I didn’t. No, normally I would, as you are intimately aware mistakes happen. Derek…he hung up on me.” Peter frowns down at his phone, profoundly offended.

  
It would be hilarious, except, Stiles grimaces, “Does that mean he’s on his way?”

  
“That means he’s already left and has no intention of changing course. Stubborn. I thought we were working on our trust issues though.”

  
“Dude,” Stiles can only shake his head, “no.”

  
Peter has a half-formed retort ready to go when he’s cut off by a polite knocking at the basement door. Stiles smirks, nevermore. He doesn’t have to look up the stairs to know its Duke, aka the only werewolf on the continental U.S. with any manners. Braeden reforms the mountain ash line while Stiles bounds up the steps two at a time followed by Peter’s indignant curses. Deucalion waits at the top, he cants his head meaning for Stiles to follow. Over the crappy quality radio Billie Holliday is crooning soulfully, for some reason her voice puts him more at ease.

Duke stops behind on the store’s front counter and starts scribbling down a list of ingredients in a loopy doctor’s scrawl that’s just a little jagged. Stiles easily forgets how long Duke was blind.

  
“Time is obviously of the essence. I know you loath to go on the run again, so I have a temporary solution.” Duke flips open an old book next to him that looks like its being held together by super glue and hope. He checks something on the page and looks at his list again.

  
“Oh my Go—do you literally always listen to our conversations?”

  
“Of course.”

  
“…fair enough.” Stiles squints and nods, mostly to himself. He can’t find it in himself to be offended or surprised. Stiles leans on his elbows over the counter to get a good look at the list Duke is swiftly compiling, it’s looking a lot like a spell.

  
“I don’t have everything we need here, or more accurately you need. You’ll have to go to the Pharmacy. As soon as possible.”  
Duke slides the list over. Stiles runs over the magical correspondences of the first few ingredients in his head and only gets a vague idea what the spell is meant to do.

  
“The spell will mask your presence, your scent, you’ll be untraceable. Even to Mr. Whittemore and I.” The last part is said with undisguised unease. Jackson isn’t going to like it either. Clingy werewolves. “I would prefer you stay here but you know how the Pharmacy works. The doors won’t open for me, nor would they for Braeden.”

  
“What about Peter?” Stiles asks stuffing the list into the front pocket of his jeans.

  
“We will watch him. He’s not lying when he says he’s curious. Even so, best not to take unnecessary chances until the risk of exposure has passed.”

  
Stiles agrees and glances to the front of the store. The light that pours in from the storefront windows is gold and warm, not raining then. Rain is better, rain makes it harder for werewolves to track by scent. Sunlight hurts Stiles eyes sometimes too—bound to happen when a person considers coffee a major food group and spends most of his time in his dark apartment like a magical tome hoarding cave goblin.

  
Stiles really doesn’t want to go outside. Jesus, he really is turning into a cave goblin. In his own defense the bookstore is the only place he feels safe. Not even his own bedroom at his old house managed that. The memory of his possession clung to the walls. A fresh coat of paint wasn’t going to cut it. The whole town of Beacon Hills has memories haunting the streets. A Californian Night Vale surrounded by woods. Stiles shakes off Beacon Hills and tells himself to suck it the fuck up, a common mantra for him. He runs upstairs to grab his jacket and few objects the Pharmacy will consider fair trade for the supplies. Enchanted trinkets for the most part he hasn’t found a use for but kept in his kitchen drawers mixed amongst equally unused cooking utensils just in case.  
Figuring Deucalion will tell Jackson and Braeden where he’s off to Stiles heads straight for the door.

The sun might be out but Stiles’ guns are in danger of getting frostbite and stay covered up. Goosebumps ghost over his skin at the shock of cold air compared to the perpetually cranked up heat of Duke’s building. He peers around the streets suspicious of anyone who looks at him longer than a second. Their street isn’t the busiest, too far off from the main grid of the city, there aren’t a lot of people running around to be suspicious of. Still, Stiles manages it. His wells of suspicion are vast and endless. Trusting your environment to not want to kill you? Ha! This is not amateur hour here. Rule one of running with werewolves? Everything is always out to get you. The manhole cover that looks like a Kool-Aide man face between his favorite pizza joint and the corner Starbucks has yet to try to eat him but Stiles is, like, waiting for the friggin’ day.

  
The Pharmacy is not far from the evil manhole cover—not far in city terms. He tries not to think of that as some sort of sign. Weird attracting weird. However in the land of weird the Pharmacy is in a league all its own. It’s a shop of sorts, one that appears like your regular friendly neighborhood CVS. The mini-mall it’s placed in is abandoned, only the Pharmacy still has its 24-hour sign up and glowing below a generic sign depicting a mortar and pestle painted in blue. No cars are parked in the pot-hole littered parking lot and seasonally impossible wild flowers push up through the cracks. The brightness of the shop is disconcerting—more than a touch otherworldly. From the outside the shelves look boring, normal, the lack of people working doesn’t really register to passersby. The Pharmacy door will only open for those with innate magic. Passive magically reliant creatures such as shapeshifters aren’t allowed. Neither are the bargain brand humans with no spark of true magic within them. Stiles thinks that his spark lets him in. The part of him that is nogitsune is so washed in magic too, he’s not certain if the Pharmacy makes the distinction.

  
Stiles announces himself when he opens the door, “ _Heeeeeey_ , it is the Stiles. Hope you remember me. I’ve only been here few times before cuz of the…creep factor, I mean that in the most respectful way.”

  
The shop is silent. It looks much the same on the inside as the outside. A bit older and more worn perhaps, dusty in that forgotten way. The aura of the place grows accepting enough Stiles feels okay about approaching the checkout register.

  
“Kay, awesome. Could you pretty please get me a dram of flying ointment, three red aconite buds, quarter pound of eyebright, an ounce of…Chalice Well water? Yes, that is what that says, oookay. Like Glastonbury? Holy crap, um, an obsidian dust sachet, and—drum roll please, an unopened bottle of Chanel number five. What the fuck? I don’t remember that being on here before…” Stiles trails off. He’s reading the list to empty air. There’s nothing there, not even the ‘impression’ of a person.

  
After a long minute of nothing happening Stiles exclaims, “Ah, shit! Sorry, sorry, the eyes are closing. Eyes are now closed. Not to be rude but I’m sort of on a—” Stiles hears the distinct sound of wood sliding against wood and opens one eye to peek. A small crate sits there next to the register with all the requested items inside discreet packaging that can easily be mistaken for things like nasal decongestant and cough syrup.

  
“Neat.” Stiles smiles reaching for the box, “Oh, wait.” He lays out his own item as payment. The air around him feels pleased. Stiles hopes that’s what that sensation is. He closes his eyes for a few seconds then opens them again, his payment has vanished. Accepted.

  
“ _Neat_.” Stiles reiterates just for himself, “You think I could get a bag? It’s just that the crate thingy is somewhat conspicuous. If that’s, ya know, cool?”

  
To be perfectly honest, Stiles has felt less listened to than in some conversations with Braeden. He closes his eyes, opens them, and his stuff is now securely in a bag that looks like it could be meant for gym clothes. Two strings on the bag allow him to wear it like a backpack.

  
“Dude, I love you.” Stiles says to no one though he directs his voice somewhere above him. The shop seems to preen. He pats the counter on the way out making sure the door doesn’t slam behind him. Manners got you everywhere in the magical world. That particular learning curve had been sharp. Stiles is a naturally spiteful little shit, he’s self-aware like that, so it was a tough lesson.

  
The second he leaves the confines of the Pharmacy Stiles knows in his bones something is wrong. His eyes scan the empty parking lot, the buildings on the corner, the cars driving too fast for the speed limit one street over. Nothing pops up to eat him and nothing stands out, he still can’t shake the urge to turn around right back into the Pharmacy. He doesn’t, not that the shop would do anything to protect him anyway. Supply resources tended to be neutral ground.

  
Times like this were when Stiles can admit werewolf senses are a secret envy of his. Certain creatures gave off a weird feeling if they were in range, sure, but it would be nice to have the assuredness of being able to smell the enemy, hear their heartbeat. Heartbeats don’t, as far as Stiles knows, thump out blatant more code messages like, ‘I’m a monster. A Stiles-killing monster.’ Though surely there is a telltale rhythm. A murder beat. Stiles knows he’s as much of a monster as anything else out there, knows he can do a lot worse to most of the supernatural citizens of the city who are dumb enough to come after him, that doesn’t change the fact most of his high school career was spent fearing for his life from things that went bump in the night. Fear can’t be unlearned. It becomes a part of you in ways that you don’t notice and other ways that you wish you didn’t. The worst fear is that of the unknown. A couple of rogue werewolves in a back alley are cake, but there’s always something out there that’s worse.

  
Whoever they are they’re not close enough for Stiles to read their aura or whatever his abilities pick up on. He’s always assumed it’s the spark inside him that has the vested interest in his safety. The nogitsune part cares about one thing and one thing only: fucking shit up. Stiles does not run. He’s being watched from a pretty far distance, they don’t know he knows. So no running. Only calm breathing and chill thoughts. Calm him Vanilla Ice because he’s the Chill-est. Stiles starts walking the opposite direction of his apartment humming the Billie Holliday song that had been playing on Duke’s radio. _Blue Moon_.

  
Shaking his maybe, probably stalker seems like the best course of action. No homicidal urges beg him to stand his ground and flash his eyes. Stiles assumes he’s got his nifty chest tat to thank for that. He picks up his pace hoping it looks more like he’s in a hurry rather than skirting panic. The fish market is not far off, Stiles can smell it and heads toward that smell. He isn’t having a hankering for the catch of the day, as a whole Stiles tends to prefer his fish in frozen stick form. The market is about to close and throngs of people were going to be moving out of the area. People plus fish equal a hard to follow Stiles. Less than a quarter mile pass the open-air vendors on the docks looms the remains of Kissenger’s fish packing plant. Three stories high and more out of the way than a back alley—it’s as good a hideout spot as any.

  
Stiles pushes through the thickening crowds of people on the sidewalk. Despite being surrounded by hundreds of other heartbeats he still feels like there’s a target on his back making his skin crawl. Stiles walks faster and tries to control the rapid fire sound of his heart in his ears. Not a single person pays him any mind. That was weird at first when he moved to the city. He’s a townie kid, the Sheriff’s son, one that was a little infamous for being in the middle of trouble. People used to know his face. He’s not sure if he misses that or not.

  
Within what feels like a few seconds Stiles is at the fenced gate of the old fish packing plant. He climbs it with zero grace but with a minimum amount of flailing, Braeden would be…well, not proud, satisfied with his progress maybe? She’s been giving him a little training here and there, ex-U.S. Marshalls knows some things about staying under the radar, he knows he’s too out in the open now and he finally caves into his instinct to run. He spares a single look behind him before sprinting at a break-neck speed into the dark shadows of the plant, he sees nothing which means nothing. Bypassing the front entrance entirely Stiles goes to the back of the building nearly tripping over broken glass made slick by grime and the days of rain prior.

  
Metal sheets hang loosely off the sides of the building where the old nails have popped out. Stiles turns a corner too fast and nicks his cheek on one of the pieces of curled metal trying to escape being a proper building. He whispers out a harsh, ‘fuck you’ without stopping. The cut on his cheek is still stinging when he spots fire escape stairs, they’re as solid as the rest of the building but not shady enough for Stiles to ‘nope’ out of climbing them, by the time he reaches the second story roof the cut is healed. Stiles sucks in a freezing breath and clutches his knees. The wind is colder, stronger on the roof, Stiles can see the water glint from the docks from this height. Even the blue sky is a chilling shade. He doesn’t feel as if he were on the bad end of sniper’s scope anymore so he gladly takes the cold.

  
Stiles plops down next to a busted air conditioning unit the size of a VW Bug and waits. He curses not buying a new cell phone sooner. Calling Braeden so she could come pick him up all badass on her motorcycle sounds like the best idea ever. Minutes tick into an hour. Achingly slow, Stiles relaxes. He hunches down into his jacket and pulls his scarf up around his nose and ears ready and able to wait as long as needed—until he thought it was safe enough. Stiles has been in worse situations. So much worse he kind of want to laugh, his face settles into a rictus smile beneath the red red red scarf. The litany of worse memories that wash over him in a wave of grief and anger almost drown out the sound of deliberate footsteps approaching. Stiles shoots up like a rocket and upon seeing the source of the scuffling steps he almost falls right back down on his ass.

  
Stiles cannot breathe. Every muscle in him tenses up, fight or flight war inside his veins.

  
“ _D-Derek_?” Amazing he can make any sound at all with the whole lack of oxygen thing. For a terrible moment Stiles is sure Derek’s not real. He deals with actual magic on a daily basis but Derek Hale being in front of him at the same time in this city is the most unbelievable thing he can imagine.

Unbelievable and also the worst. Derek is real and Stiles’ heart strains to burst.

  
Stiles has never seen this expression on Derek’s face before. He admittedly has an extensive mental catalog of the way Derek chooses to emote from the full on mocking via thick eyebrows to hiding pain, it’s weird but Stiles pays close attention to people—he can’t help it. Derek looks wrecked, afraid and angry and relieved. Haunted. Every ounce of it is aimed at Stiles. Heavy and bleeding like a dead body laid at his feet in offering. Derek isn’t dressed for the weather, a too thin grey Henley and jeans, straight outta Beacon Hills. Werewolves didn’t worry about the cold. Stiles becomes irrationally angry about the way Derek’s standing right in the way of the sun blocking its rays and making himself look like a fucking angel or something.

  
Like he’s here to save Stiles.

  
Like Stiles is worth saving.

  
Derek must have been tracking him since the Pharmacy. Stiles can’t help his heckles rising at the realization. He’s been cornered. Wolves like to use ambush hunting tactics against prey all the time in the wild. Shit is starting to look pretty wild to Stiles. Hurting Derek is the last thing in the world he wants to do. Under the repetitive chant of ‘don’t hurt him’ in Stiles’ head a dark cold nothing like the frigid air around them starts to pool into an ugly ball inside of him. All of his sigils burn, the one on his chest burns hottest. Stiles carves a sentence into the back of his eyes: _I’m not going to hurt Derek_.

  
Stiles’ eyes slide to edge of the roof. It’s a two story drop. With his healing he might make it, his eyes go back to Derek who seems as frozen in place as he is, he might not…either way it’s a promise to himself kept.

Derek follows what has Stiles’ attention, his gaze widens, the first words he says are panicked and rough, “Stiles, _no!_ ”

  
The shadows beneath Derek’s hazel eyes are the deepest Stiles has ever seen them. His beard is scruffier, his skin pale and papery. Stiles needs to get away from him. Now. Unnatural silver illuminates his eyes for the first time he wills it himself. Derek takes a step back, reflex, shock overrides anything else written on the sharp planes of his face. Stiles uses that moment to sprint to the ledge of the roof leaving all the questions between them hanging there like so many particles of dust in a beam of sunlight. Derek roars his name, Stiles thinks he feels the tips of claws at the nape of his neck the last second before leaping over the roof’s edge.

  
The cold of his nogitsune powers push against the heat of his sigils then migrate to his legs and spine. For a fleeting moment Stiles feels truly powerful, his spark and nogitsune energies intermingle lighting up everything inside him with crackling fireworks. He is not afraid. Falling is easy after all. Falling is one of those things that takes seconds in reality and lasts forever in your head. Scott told him after the newly minted werewolf made first line he’d done so well because it just felt like he’d all the time in the world to catch the ball. Enhanced senses are neat like that. Stiles can’t hear heartbeats or lift cars off people but he thinks he finally knows what Scott was talking about that day. He’s got all the time in the world to fall and to do something about it. It all feels syrupy like slow-motion.

  
Stiles lands hard on his feet, his power ripples out around him in a foggy grey mist across the ground. The asphalt beneath the soles of his boots cracks under the transference of energy. The landing fucking hurts. Stiles gasps, stumbles, and chokes down the pain forcing his legs to run knowing Derek’s not going to be far behind. If it weren’t for all that he would totally be high-fiving himself over the sheer badassery of not dying in a spectacularly awesome way.  
The front gate to the plant’s been ripped open when Stiles gets there. Subtlety thy name is not Derek Hale. The twisted hole lets Stiles keep running without stopping.

Lingering pain clinging to his bones begs him to slow down, Stiles doesn’t know how. Never did. Stiles swings around the curb of the street, he notices the violently red Porsche barreling down the road directly for him at the very last millisecond. The car skids to a stop, tires scream in protest and the smell of burnt rubber fills the air. Stiles throws his body out of the way losing his balance, his back slams into the ground and he idly hopes the spell ingredients will be okay. Jackson’s head pops out the driver’s side window and glares at him with music blaring from inside the car.

  
“Is that Icona Pop?” Stiles groans, “Or did I just hit my head?”

  
A faint blush splotches Jackson’s cheeks, “You hit your head. What the hell happened? Where the fuck have to been!?” The ‘I was worried’ went unsaid but is understood regardless.

  
“Oh my god,” Stiles clamors to his feet dusting himself off as he goes, “You’re a helicopter mom. Long story short: Derek’s here already, yay. I vote talking later and driving away like Vin Diesel now.”

  
Stiles flings the passenger door open then freezes dead in his tracks when a voice calls out his name. It’s not Derek. Fuck, he wishes it were.

  
“Stiles! Son, stop!” Sheriff Stilinski, his father, looks haggard. Stiles has seen him with facial hair exactly once when he was six years old. His mom let his dad keep it for one week before making him shave it all off. She’d laughed bright as the sun and said she’d married Johnny Cage not Chuck Norris.  
The Sheriff has a few days growth of stubble on his face, the circles around his eyes matched Stiles’ own.

The sight shatters something inside Stiles. He can almost hear the snap, like a bone breaking. Jackson catches him by the sleeve of his jacket and jerks him into the car. Stiles is still staring at his dad. His dad. _His dad is here._

  
“Stiles!” The elder Stilinski is soon joined by Derek whose face is contorted into a much more familiar visage of fury.

  
Jackson floors it in reverse causing Stiles’ face to intimately meet the dashboard in the most unpleasant of ways.

  
“Stiles! Miecyslaw!” Stiles’ father’s voice echoes.

  
Jackson does not stop. He turns the car around with practiced precision and looks only moderately freaked the fuck out at the sight of Derek Hale running after them at full speed. They have the advantage over Derek, they know the city. Jackson loses Derek in his first two sharp turns.

  
“What language was that?” Jackson asks in the most normal bullshit tone Stiles has ever heard out of him.

  
Stiles sighs and pokes at his sore nose, “The devil’s own.” He leaves it at that not knowing whether Jackson knew what his real name is and is just giving him a hard time to distract him or doesn’t actually know, Stiles doesn’t care either way.

  
Derek Stiles can handle, not in the healthiest of ways but he can do it. His dad? Stiles is responsible for the way his dad looks. Putting him through this is something that weighs on Stiles constantly. He hasn’t had to see it firsthand though. Stiles counts his fingers, they’re dirty now but there’s only ten of them. He stares into the rearview mirror to find his eyes still blazing a cold, cold silver swamped in a depthless black. He’s not the Stiles his dad is looking for.

  
Stiles cackles hysterically at his own unintentional Star Wars reference and literally can’t help himself from quoting Carrie Fisher at his eerie reflection, “Help me, Obi-Wan. Whoever the fuck you are. You’re my only ho.”

  
Jackson gives him a side-eye like Stiles has finally lost it. Which isn’t very funny at all because Stiles thinks Jackson might be right this time.

 

 

_tbc_  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> True evil is trying to update a fic using your phone.


	3. Like A River Runs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter length consistency? I don't know her.

 

“This would be easier if you weren’t all staring at me. With the _eyes_ and the _staring_.” Stiles mutters seething an aura of indignant irritation. The room full of people aren’t nonplussed by Stiles’ bitchiness. If anyone is allowed to be in a bad mood once in a while they all surely believe Stiles does. Beyoncé is playing from Jackson’s phone because according to Stiles it soothes him and she’s magic anyway, one and one go together. He does not appear very soothed. The opposite of soothed.

“Performance issues, Stilinski?” Jackson’s taunting does little to mask his curiosity about anything magical.

  
Jackson keeps his distance, curiosity notwithstanding, to Stiles’ kitchenette behind the counter along with a watchful Duke. Braeden won’t let Peter out of her sight and stands beside him on the other side of the living room. They figure since Derek and Stiles’ father are already in city limits there isn’t much else Peter can do. He seems much more keen about Stiles than giving away the bookstore’s location to his indomitable nephew. For now, Peter gets to exist outside the basement claiming Derek likely had that ‘sweet Mahealani boy’ hack his phone and has been keeping tabs on him this whole time. Said phone gets dumped in the bay. Peter’s too caught up in being pleased as punch about Derek being so underhanded to worry about Jackson coming close to losing control at the mention of Danny and going for Peter’s throat. Freaking Hales.

  
Stiles flips Jackson off without looking up, he frowns at the chalk-drawn pentacle he’s standing on. He runs through the steps of Duke’s spell in his head. Double-checking isn’t so much a good habit in magic as it is a necessity. One minute you’re just trying to do a tiny baby spell to magically heat up a hotpocket when you’re only microwave craps out the next thing you know your eyebrows have burned off. Good times. Duke’s spell is sadly hotpocket-less but everything seems good to go. The pentacle is even geometrically perfect. Pentacles are the workhorses of spell-work. Gotta problem? Slap a pentacle on it. Need a power boost? Slap a pentacle on it. Want the old lady who lives down the street to accuse of worshipping the Dark Lord Satan? Weird, but yeah, pentacle. Stiles has a few of them on his own body so he’s fond because, duh, magic, and they’re just so old school occult.

  
Magic surprisingly is also a whole lot of throwing shit in a bowl, lighting it on fire, and hoping for the best. There’s an allegory for his life somewhere in there. This spell is not much different than any other he’s attempted since he’s been on his own. A copper bowl full of all the herbs, perfume and oils Stiles retrieved sits accusingly on the floor circled by glittering obsidian dust. Stiles’ eyes are anointed with the flying ointment leaving them heavy and making his skin tingle beneath the slightly greasy film. Something unpleasant is always getting smeared on something else in magic, usually on Stiles himself. It’s all pretty par for the course. Considering.

  
Stiles doesn’t have to be _this_ careful. He’s dragging his feet. He knows he is. Yeah, earlier all he had wanted to do was get home and do this spell, feel safe again, and maybe crack open the wolfsbane-laced liquor with Jackson and Braeden—not think about the damage he’s caused. Stiles shakes his hands out overtly nervous, everything is set. It’s fine. The cloudy apprehension nagging from somewhere deep down inside is baseless. It’s all fine.

  
A put-upon sigh draws Stiles’ attention back up, Peter’s making a ‘move it along’ motion with his hand. Braeden shoves her elbow into the werewolf’s ribs because that’s love bitch. Or that’s at least mild affection born over time and the ol’ Stilinski charm…bitch? A whiny gasp escapes Peter unbidden, clearly surprised by the force Braeden put into the blow. Jackson serves Peter one of his meaner cocky grins.

  
“Stiles,” Deucalion’s voice is soft but it carries, “ _Is_ there something wrong?”

  
Stiles glares fiercely at his feet then abruptly lights a match and throws it into the bowl, the resulting violet-tinted flames are two feet high casting dancing shadows everywhere, “No.”

  
With a practiced hand Stiles pours the Chalice Well water into the flames while he recites the Latin incantation Duke proved in a hard clipped accent. Thick curling purple smoke rises as the flames die down. The smoke starts to coil languidly around Stiles from head to foot. His Latin flows faster though his voice pitches a little deeper, slower, quieter. Those around him are used to magic shows in Stiles’ living room, usually Duke brought snacks afterwards for the bigger forays into the realm of the Old Ways. All except for Peter who can’t keep the heady interest off his smug face. Stiles doesn’t get a whole lot of time to wonder about the inner mechanizations of Peter’s brain, who would even want to, because the spell calls for Stiles to close his eyes after the incantation is complete and focus on his own senses.

  
Smell, taste, touch, sight, sound.

  
Stiles feels a little floaty after concentrating, zoning in and out of his senses. Faintly, in a world far far away, Stiles can hear the lyrics to Single Ladies. The out of sorts headspace is normal, however the way the floor feels like it gives way under his feet is not. His eyes fly open and are blinded by searing white light. He’s never seen real snow but he knows what snow-blindness is. He’s only ever been to one place like this. Instinctively, or spastically depending on who you ask, Stiles throws his arms out. Rough, ridged wood drags under Stiles’ fingertips, ancient and oh so familiar. His vision adjusts. Mother. Fucking. Nemeton.

  
“Hey, Batman. You fainted.” A young woman teases in smooth as velvet voice. He can tell she’s smiling.

  
Stiles drags his gaze from the rings of the tree stump he’s sitting on to the girl sitting opposite him. There’s a board game between him and the one and only Erica Reyes. Their positions echo his memory of the nogitsune playing Go replacing it with much softer connotations. Erica glows, healthy and whole. She’s in comfortable clothes and her hair comes down in gentle golden waves. Upon closer inspection the game board situated between them is Snakes and Ladders. He fucking hates Snakes and Ladders.

  
Confused and reeling Stiles still can’t help but to smile right back at the girl he used to know, “Hey, Catwoman.”

  
Her grin goes sad and sharp at once, “I’ve been trying to look after them. But, turns out that’s harder than I was hoping it would be. Being dead.”

  
“Shame,” Stiles moves a piece on the board and hangs onto his faux calm best he can, “You would have made a badass poltergeist.”

  
“I know! Trust me that’s the first shit I tried.” She flips her hair haughtily. Shame, since they are speaking of them, that Erica and Lydia never got to be friends, or maybe it was luck—the world would have never survived that team up. Like Jean Grey and Wanda Maximoff.

  
“Is Boyd…?”

  
“Oh, he’s always around. Never far.” Erica cants her head letting Stiles look over shoulder easier. Down the long white corridor of the Nemeton’s vaulted halls is a massive grey wolf sitting calmly as-you-please.

  
“Holy shit.”

  
“We were wolves when…so, wolves we still are. I’m grateful actually, my wolf was waiting for me. I wasn’t really alone at the end.” She moves her own piece of the game, her face lights up in delight as Stiles realizes she’s about to win.

  
Stiles resolutely does not cry. Erica doesn’t seem all that distraught about her untimely demise. She doesn’t blame anyone, doesn’t hold a grudge, saying death puts things in perspective. He supposes he should be grateful for that. He lives with the guy responsible for her death. Different now or not Stiles thinks if it were him he would. Hold a grudge that is. Stiles refuses to be the type to go gently into that good night. Other than her new-found Zen Erica apparently can’t tell him much else about the afterlife.

  
“Why are you here, Erica? Other than to kick my ass at my least favorite childhood board game?” Stiles eventually asks already hating himself for ruining the bright energy around Erica. Her softness bleeds to stone.

  
“Allison’s been trying to talk to you. It’s not letting her.” Erica points down, “But I also think because she’s not like me or Boyd. She’s something else, I don’t think she’s supposed to be able to warn anyone. That’s not her job.”

  
Stiles wants to know what Allison’s so called ‘job’ is. He wants to know what she needs the armor for. He notes the plummeting temperature and probes further, “But you can?”

  
“Can what?”

  
“Warn me.”

  
“Oh. Yes and no.”

  
Stiles gapes at her, beyond irritated and a smidge hysterical. Ha. _Beyond_.

  
“Sorry, Batman, I want to help. I do, but I can’t tell you much.” She sighs, “I can tell you this: you need to get your ass home. Things will be worse if you don’t. The pack have grown in your absence. They were forced to. And you have grown in theirs. Which is great and whatever but this shit is big. Bigger than your fears or their anger. They’re going to need you.”

  
A frost has formed over the game board. The pieces stick.

  
“Why me?” Stiles hates the way he sounds. Whiny and small.

  
Erica leans forward, “You think you’ve been tainted.” Not a question.

  
Stiles answers anyway, “I have been.”

  
She scoffs delicately, “Obviously. Get over it.”

  
Stiles blinks.

  
“What did you think was going to happen? You were going to become McCall’s emissary, live together like one big happy family, and pine over Derek at Thanksgiving dinner, where nothing bad ever happened again? Puh-lease, Stiles, we were all meant for the dark. We’re fighters. You were like this even before you knew the supernatural was real. I know I was, but you have a penchant for beating the odds I never had. Trust yourself. Get over yourself. They’ll forgive you.” Erica balls her hands into fists, her eyes burn gold, “I’m out of time.”

  
The Nemeton hums under Stiles causing him to jump up thoroughly freaked out. He glances up meaning to ask Erica if she felt it too. In her place sits a cream-white wolf with only a dusting of brown around the snout to break up her impeccable fur. The wolf turns leaping off the surface of the Nemeton and runs to the patiently waiting grey wolf. The two spare Stiles a considering look then rub the sides of their faces together before running off into the endless white side by side.

  
Ominously the Nemeton’s grumbling grows louder quickly becoming the same unnatural howl he’s heard before. The sound fills Stiles’ head, too full and too loud. He tries to cover his ears but it’s pointless. Howling overtakes everything, his teeth rattle under the force of it, his skull throbs. Stiles’ vision blurs and for a moment he thinks, maybe, he’s surrounded by people. Hundreds of tall ambiguously human shadows converge on him and the Nemeton.

  
Stiles wakes up to Jackson’s wolfed-out face a couple of uncomfortable inches away from his nose.

  
“I’m so glad you have eyebrows.” Is the only thing Stiles can think to say. Really, he’s been meaning to get it off his chest for some time now. Ideally he would have brought up the eyebrow situation sometime other than when blood is once again running rivulets out his nose over his mouth. Gross.

  
“You fainted. Like a girl.” Jackson accuses. His fangs make all of his words the tiniest bit lispy.

  
“That’s misogynistic, dickbag. Does anyone have an aspirin?” Stiles props himself up on his elbows and blearily looks around.

  
“Give the kid some breathing room,” Braeden pushes Jackson out of hovering distance, “you freaked them out. Spell works a little too well. No scent, no heartbeat—”

  
“Like I can see you but it feels like there’s nothing there.” Jackson is not quite passed the freaked out part. He’s got to visibly take deep breaths until he’s calm enough to let his face smooth over into his human features, then he just looks pissy.

  
Belatedly Stiles realizes he’s on his own futon flattened out into its crappy makeshift bed form. A thin blanket is wrapped around his legs burrito style and a damp rag splotched with blood lies close to his head, he reaches for it casually wiping at his nose. Too casually for his two friends who both thin their lips in disapproval. Peter isn’t in the room, neither is Deucalion, Stiles lets himself relax just a little. No one should be prone and bleeding with Peter Hale next to them first thing after waking from unconsciousness.

  
“What the hell happened?” Braeden doesn’t often look tired being as ride or die as she is and she doesn’t look tired per say now, just…weary. She smells like vanilla and gun oil. Memories of his mom and dad come wailing in, he swallows copper and salt.

  
Stiles takes a shuddering breath, “Lately…so I get dreams, right?”

  
Dreams are too gentle a word but if he can soften his pain for other’s consummation he’s going to do it. He had only described the bare bones of his brain’s nightly trips into the Nemeton’s grindhouse show featuring utter terror and crushing guilt to Braeden only after a long car ride for a job gave her a front row seat a few months ago. Intelligence gathering is what she likes to calls it. ‘It’ meaning Braeden’s line of incredibly invasive questioning that’s out of genuine concern while simultaneously keeping up her aloof cool cat persona and protecting Stiles’ fragile little boy pride. Stiles loves her a little bit.

  
Braeden nods confusion evident, “Right?”

  
“Okay, so don’t freak out. I, uh, I see dead people?” Jesus Christ.

  
“Are you fucking with us?” Jacksons asks honestly.

  
“No?”

  
Braeden shifts her weight into something of a parade rest and glares, “You don’t sound very sure.”

  
“I’m not sure of anything anymore ever.” Stiles sighs resisting the desire to flop back down.

  
Jackson makes a disgusted sound as he ducks out the doorway into the kitchenette returning less than half a minute later with water and a dwindling supply of aspirin. He shoves them at Stiles until the disheveled boy takes what he’s being offered so rudely. Braeden waits for Stiles to take a couple of the pills and finish the glass of water before demanding real answers. Telling Stiles Stilinski to give you the whole story is a lot like Congress asking the CIA for a mission report: you’ll get it but so much has been redacted with black ink it’s hard to tell up from down. The people around Stiles have to learn to read between what’s being said and what’s very carefully not. Unfortunately the list of people willing to sparse through his rants and rambles—his ridiculous need to protect people, is not very long. Braeden’s willing. Neither of them is certain when she turned that corner.

  
Stiles begins with a watered-down version the night terrors. He keeps his recount clipped, avoids everything about the Hales because Peter is definitely listening in, the memories that don’t belong to him, and stays with the safety of generalized blood and carnage. Explaining Allison is a lot harder, Stiles can’t stop his voice from cracking, can’t stop his breath becoming too shallow. Braeden keeps his gaze, she doesn’t stop pushing. She asks specifically about the Nemeton. Little details he has to stress to remember, its times like this Stiles remembers her past in law enforcement.

  
When Stiles describes Erica he leaves out the part about Snakes and Ladders. Without fully understanding why he also leaves out the part about Erica and Boyd becoming wolves. It felt like a secret he’s been entrusted with. A secret of the dead or a secret of werewolves it didn’t matter, Stiles is going to hold it close. By the end of his spiel Braeden is tense and Jackson’s pallor can use some serious beach time. To Stiles’ slight chagrin Peter and Deucalion have darkened the doorway to his bedroom both intent—a sentence he never thought would cross his mind.

  
“Okay,” Jackson says, “What the fuck.”

  
“Aptly put, my dude.” Stiles says into his glass. He gets up feeling bones pop and groans. He’s spent way too much time shirtless around Peter Hale, thanks, and starts digging around for his favorite long sleeve monstrosity that’s worn soft and almost too big for him. The shirt lies at the bottom of a pile of clothes thrown in a corner all of which smell pretty shady. Every wolf in the room makes an unpleasant face as Stiles pulls the offending shirt over his head. Serves them right, judgmental demon hounds.

  
“A Nemeton does not call to anyone lightly.” Duke points out. One of his arms is thrown across the threshold of the doorway blocking Peter from stepping in any further.

  
“Ya think?” Peter retorts staring at Stiles in that unsettling, unblinking way of his. Being interesting is so overrated.

  
“Uh, yeah,” Jackson starts putting himself between Stiles and the older wolves, “fuck that. Fuck whatever it is you’re trying to imply. We just got him away from that asshole Derek Hale, and the Sheriff. Plus that spell put Stilinski on his ass, no way we did all that bullshit for nothing! We’re going back to Beacon Hills over my dead body.”

  
Peter regards him coolly, “What a tragic thought.”

  
To Stiles’ shock Deucalion flashes his Alpha red eyes at Peter, Peter wisely take a careful step back. Duke never demonstrates his power, his status is betrayed constantly by his easy air of authority but Stiles hasn’t seen that shade of red since he’s left Beacon Hills. There could be a million reasons why, Stiles certainly has a theory, point is the guy makes an effort to not exert his Alpha side. It’s a little disorienting to see in his small-ass apartment.

  
Stiles wonders, ever so briefly, about them. Deucalion and Peter, Stiles and Jackson, even Braeden. They were all the same. Amazing how people can be so full of rage and wrath and ruin then just swallow it down like a poisonous bitter pill. He wonders where it all goes, how does it never overflow? They all must be full of bullet holes, their minds, their souls. Souls shouldn’t feel like a concept that can be punctured, Stiles knows they can. His soul had been forced out of his body after all and it had been battered.

  
“I fear,” Deucalion’s voice rumbles, while his words are meant for Jackson he refuses to shift his eyes from Peter, “Mr. Whittemore, this may very well be on those times fate neglects to afford us a choice.”

  
“Well, fuck that too!” Jackson decides venomously. He doesn’t seem too concerned about Duke low-key being protective over him. Not like pack, not really, something close enough. Good enough.

  
“Nobody is going anywhere right this second, dude, chill.” Stiles says clapping the other boy on the shoulder though he agrees whole-heartedly with Jackson’s sentiment because, holy shit, same.

  
Braeden cracks her knuckles absently, her eyebrow quirks up unimpressed. “We can’t just ignore what’s happening to you.” She says.

  
“All this ‘we’,” Stiles snaps, “I, personally, can definitely ignore what’s happening to me. In fact I will continue to happily ignore it.”

  
“Stiles—”

  
“No. No, nope, nyet, nein.” Stiles punctuates every dissent by pointing at each of his houseguests.

  
Braeden throws her arms up, she’s done. She’s not anyone’s babysitter. Stiles knows her well enough to know Braeden’s not gonna fight him on this. Jackson though, he’s just enough of a not-to-secret caretaker to be super annoying. Which is not really Jackson’s fault. Stiles lets stupid shit get under his skin and fester until he strikes out at his nearest or dearest—whoever came first. They don’t deserve to be treated as callously as Stiles treats them and when he’s alone in the quiet he’s carved out for himself with harsh words he’ll regret it. That’s later, and because Stiles is better at being a profound jerk than profoundly regret being a jerk he uses his will to throw open the front door in a wood-rattling gusting blast.

  
Braeden glances at the door then looks back to Stiles, “I’m not your mom, kid, call me when you get your head out of your ass.” She drops a mysterious brand new cell phone on the futon and saunters out like she’s got a million better things to do. Stiles doesn’t doubt it: _mercenary_. Easy for one to forget she kills supernaturals for money between the online multiplayer and late nights decoding magical doom boxes.

  
Deucalion considers Stiles’ flushing cheeks and rapid heartbeat for a few long seconds. Stiles can feel the invasive werewolf once-over every time they freaking do it. There was this kid in grade school that could flip his eyelids inside out who was too weird for even Stiles Stilinski to associate with, the werewolf once-over felt a lot how that had looked. Insides on the outside for the world to see. Shivering at the memory, Stiles focuses on pulling his face into one of incensed anger. He’s made it this far without anyone telling him how to handle his shit. Everything is fine or it will be. Duke inclines his head and assesses Peter instead.

  
“Mr. Hale,” Peter suppresses a toothy grin, “I believe you and I have matters to discuss, let us grant the boy some space.” Duke’s tone leaves no room for argument despite the polite word usage.

  
Duke gestures Peter toward the open door so that Duke is the one walking behind him like a watchful predator who is not particularly hungry but still perfectly willing to crush bones between his teeth. Peter tosses a ‘toodaloo’ over his shoulder as he’s herded away. Stiles has no doubt Duke will in fact have nice long discussion with the eldest Hale. He almost wishes he could see it—would see if his nosey self if wasn’t mid-tantrum.

  
Jackson makes no indication of moving. The disgustedly furious expression on his face only gets worse. He rolls his eyes and bypasses Stiles completely to the futon where he throws off the blankets and pillows unceremoniously onto the chilled floor. Prissily Jackson dusts of the cushions then sprawls out. He grabs Stiles’ Xbox controller making it clear its gonna take a lot more than Stiles’ shitty attitude and magically moving door to move his ass out of there.

  
Stiles glowers until a sudden burst of thunder causes him to flinch. Noticing the change in the weather is low on the list of stuff Stiles is worrying about. He doesn’t mourn the sunny sky in the slightest, rather he pries open the only two windows in the apartment letting in the smell of rain and ozone. The clouds break open and the torrential rain sounds like a hail of pebbles on the roof of the old building. Jackson stays quiet, he keeps the volume of the game he’s started on mute though the sour lemon look doesn’t leave him. A cold breeze wafts in between them, cold enough for Jackson to start eyeing the blanket he threw on the floor.

  
Standing and glaring at the back of Jackson’s perfectly groomed head is not going to do anything for him and it’s not like Stiles’ is fond of the idea of going back to sleep again anytime soon. Like never ever. Food sounds good. He grabs cold three-day old Thai from his fridge and meanders over to his increasingly chaotic work table. In the past Stiles tried a million charms and spells to try and ‘fix’ his whole nightmare problem. Contrary to what his friends think he doesn’t actually enjoy suffering. Stiles is no Byronic anti-hero, he is just surviving and attempting to ensure everyone else does too. Easier said than done, Stiles should be used to that by now. To distract himself from that ever encroaching Byronic despair he absolutely knew nothing about Stiles decides to give finding a band-aide for his nightmares another shot.

  
Silence settles easily over the little apartment. The rain is a distant gentle pitter patter and Jackson doesn’t peek over his shoulder once. The young werewolf would if any weird smells start to perforate the air or if Stiles starts mumbling in rhyme. As it is Stiles is merely flipping through his own extensive notes and double checking box-eared books in the off chance he’s missed something. Research has always been his shtick, he’s awesome at it. Missing anything after the numerous times he’s been down this road is highly implausible but at least he can say he is trying. In spite of what anyone else thought. Spite is not an uncommon motivator for Stiles. Along with fear, anxiety, and a dire constant need for caffeine. All are perfectly reasonable motivators. Stiles flings himself into a researching black hole fueled by spite and at least two of the latter.

  
He pings around from books to notebooks to his slow as hell laptop—usually buried under said books and notebooks, like a spastic pin-ball game. At one point Jackson begins to make a soft snuffling sound that can evolve to freight train levels of noise pollution if Jackson leans his head the wrong way. The sound cuts off and Stiles thinks the other boy must have woken up. The rains stops just as his eyes become too tired to see anything other than an indecipherable ink wash where words should be. He attempts to read the last sentence he’s on for the third time and the letters just won’t…they won’t…Stiles stops, exhaling very carefully and as controlled as he can. If he lets the panic take root there’ll be no stopping it. He can’t read. His eyes are just too tired, the letters are jumbled and no matter how hard he tries there’s no making sense of them. A break is all he needs.

  
A tug on Stiles’ consciousness jerks his head up inexplicably drawn to the darkest corner of the room. He’s afraid to blink, like blinking will make the gauzy figure vaguely taking shape in the shadows more real. Mist covers the floor and the floor boards look loose as if roots were growing under them pushing them up. His whole living room feels stage-like, if the three witches from Macbeth popped up swirling spells in a cauldron Stiles wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe he’d ask for tips.

  
The Thing in the corner shimmers becoming more solid, more milky white than candle smoke. Soft edges of a face are clearer, the face smiles and Stiles wants to sob. Scream. Do anything but stand there brokenly staring without blinking.

  
“No,” he breathes, “ _no no no no_ …” This isn’t right. Using her isn’t right. And it is her. Claudia Stilinski was not a woman anyone could easily forget. Stiles has her face memorized, infallible in lines of stone along with a name etched into granite.

  
Stiles’ dad used to say, back when Stiles couldn’t reach the kitchen faucet and his mom showed no signs of sickness, that Stiles had his mother’s eyes. Wide, framed in long lashes—the color of whiskey. Whiskey, a terrible kind of ironic after his mom died. In turn his mom often followed up with her own comments on how Stiles clearly had her own father’s sly here-comes-trouble grin or Stiles inherited his dad’s tells when he was lying. Stiles took their words on it; he’s never paid much attention to his own appearance until he went and got himself possessed. He has studied his mother’s though, he knows her, knows without a doubt that’s his mom in the corner of his living room shrouded in shadow and as real as Erica was. As Allison. Her smile is warm, soft, for all the terror he feels Stiles can’t help but to ache. It’s the same smile she would give him while they made dinner together on lazy summer evenings waiting for Deputy Dad to get off his shift.

  
A pale incandescent finger points straight down. Stiles follows the motion, not really sure if he’s breathing again. Foggily Stiles knows that could be a big problem soon. His attention drags down to his mother’s bare feet poking from beneath a long hospital gown—horrifyingly enough he recognizes it as the same one she spent her last day in. Stiles’ throat is dry but he tries to swallow anyway. There’s a small green sprout growing out of his floor. The awfulness of it all is pushed aside long enough for Stiles to cock his head a little and think, huh, weird. The sprout twists and grows into a small tree full of gleaming green leaves.

  
Claudia remains motionless nor does the smile leave her ghostly face. Stiles can’t understand how she looks right and wrong at the same time. The tree continues to wind around itself growing larger and larger. With it builds the baleful howl of the Nemeton. His floor buckles, boards are flung away by unstoppable roots. Stiles’ lungs and eyes can’t take it anymore. He blinks, gasps, and all at once the vision is gone.

  
“—iles?” Jackson stands on the other side of the work table leaning forward on his hands, “Stiles? Come on, Stilinski, you’re freaking me out.”

  
Stiles warily examines the notebook he still has a white-knuckled grip on. At the top of the first page are annotations on the effects of anise and lavender Stiles is sure he wrote down when he first started. Hours ago. The words on the page taper off into a great big spiraling scribble that eats up most of the page and then smearing around the edges, ink stains the palm of Stiles’ hand and most of his pinky. He’s been fucking crying again. Stiles snaps the notebook shut and shoves himself away from the table. Walking kinda sucks right now but he’s an expert at looking like nothing’s wrong. He doesn’t cast a single look to the corner where his mom stood seconds ago.

  
His shiny new cell phone lays innocently on the futon. Stiles guesses Jackson was fiddling with it because a) he’s a hundred percent sure those are Jackson’s abs that are now saved as his lock screen and b) he would never download the GQ magazine app. Stiles’ nerves are shot but he can’t help but to laugh. Jackson is pretty damn smug about it.

  
GQ-wolf’s pleased face is short lived, “What are you doing?”

  
“Calling Braeden.”

  
“What? Why?”

  
Stiles shoots him a determined expression that’s overall dampened by his exhaustion. It takes Jackson a few incredulous seconds to put two and two together.

  
“No!”

  
Stiles scrubs his head, he sort of misses the texture of his buzz cut, “Braeden’s right. I would say never tell her I said that but, she knows. Besides the way I figure it we can go back, fix this shit, and get the fuck outta Dodge without anyone knowing we’ve been there. Dad and Derek aren’t going to look for me in Beacon Hills. I’m invisible now.”

  
“You’ve always been invisible, Stilinski.” Jackson snaps. And, ow, that hurts more than Stiles would ever admit. Of course Jackson means to hurt him, that’s the point and also just what Jackson does. He doesn’t look sorry either.

  
Stiles is doing a lot of shit he said he wouldn’t do. This trend of going back on his own decisions sucks and he hates it. Hates the way it feels like there’s some nameless power forcing his hand at every turn. Autonomy is a big deal these days, it was one of those rare words he’d heard before but didn’t know the meaning of until he looked it up. He had looked up a lot ways to deal with the aftermath of his possession. The only thing anyone could agree on was everyone fixes themselves in their own way.

  
A little honesty will be nice for once, Jackson deserves that much from him, “I saw my mom, Jackson. They—it, fuck I don’t know what to call any of this, used my dead mother to get my attention.” The vision is his first waking nightmare in a long time but it’s possibly the worst ever. Creeptastic riddles and flashes of world wars he can handle, his mom? God, no. Stiles drums his fingers, counting, to be sure he’s awake. One can never be too careful with the waking ones.

  
Jackson’s jaw clenches, furiously working over something to say, finally the wolf spits, “Fine!” Then he storms out.

  
Stiles stares at the slammed door a bit dumbly for a moment with his thumb hovering over the call button. He plops down right on the floor and presses the damn button.

  
Braeden shows up approximately an hour later with a freaking prisoner transport van. Like people just have those lying around. Stiles wants to ask so many questions. So many. Braeden flashes a legit U.S. Marshall badge at him answering about half of them without having to say a word.

  
“That’s hot.” Stiles says because it’s true. He’s got a backpack ready to go and his jacket is a calming weight on his shoulders.

  
Braeden grins, “I know.”

  
She flings the rear doors of the van open revealing Jackson, Deucalion, and a very giddy Peter already inside. They all have their own bags of belongings under their seats, somehow even Peter. Braeden keeps a cooler in the front with her purely because of the simple fact that men cannot be trusted with stuff like soda and pull-apart cheese sticks in moving vehicles.

  
“You guys don’t have to do this.” Stiles casts a significant look to Jackson and Duke.

  
“We beg to differ, Mr. Stilinski.” Duke replies bemused.

  
Jackson crosses his arms and glares. Here and present but extremely pissed about it.

  
Stiles is hit by a not-so-fond memory that makes him smother a smile, “This is almost like that time we kidnapped you!”

  
Jackson glares impossibly harder.

  
“Oh, so when you do it it’s okay?” Peter complains.

  
Stiles pretends he doesn’t hear him, “Hey do you still have that restraining order against me?”

  
Jackson rolls his eyes then stops, an arrogant look shutters over his face, “What do you think?”

  
“Do you? Jackson, do you? Oh my God, answer me! Am I gonna get arrested for being friends with you?”

  
“Someone should be.” Peter mutters. Stiles just now notices the handcuffs around the wolf’s wrists, good. Duke smiles at Peter though it’s less a smile and more a bearing of teeth with a hint of fang showing. Peter shrugs and settles back comfortably.

  
Braeden is severely unimpressed with her cargo, “Alright, enough. Get in boy wonder.”

  
Stiles starts to climb in but pauses, he has to ask one more time, “Are you guys sure though? This isn’t your problem. I mean you could be sleeping right now.” Jesus, it’s almost one in the morning.

  
“We’ll sleep when we’re dead.” Braeden beams, all teeth, before shoving Stiles in and closing the doors behind him.

  
A beat passes then Peter offers, “That’s not quite accurate. Personally I didn’t find death to be all that restful.”

  
Another beat then Dukes responds serious as a panther attack, “Well, you could always give it another try.”

  
The chain-linked partition between the driver’s and prisoner’s sides clangs open, both Stiles and Jackson flinch. It’s a lot less creepy in the back now that a little more light is being let in and Stiles can smell Braeden’s pine tree car freshener. He can also see the hula girl she has glued to the dash. Did he mention lately how much he loves Braeden? Because he loves Braeden.

  
“Got any requests?” Braeden asks through the opening.

  
“Dealer’s choice.” Stiles answers opting to sit cross-legged on the floor of the van rather than on the little metal bench things attached to the inner walls.

  
Braeden hums, weighing her options. The engine roars to life and Stiles can hear her messing with something. For a long pregnant pause there’s silence but then, before Braeden pulls the van out from in front of the bookstore, “ _Ha ha ha ha. Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want. I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha). I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah._ ”

  
Obviously unappreciative of the classic harmonies of the Spice Girls Peter slides his eyes over to Duke, “That second chance at death still on the table?”

  
Duke stares off into the abyss, “Get in line.”

  
Drama queens, both of them.

  
Stiles still wants to avoid sleeping as long as he can and it just so happens he knows every word to every Spice Girls song ever made. He appreciates the good things in life, that and any chance Stiles gets to irritate the fuck out of Peter Hale without having to worry about physical bodily harm he’s gonna take. Not to mention the distraction helps take him out of the reality of what they’re doing. Where they’re going.

  
Beacon Hills.

  
Stiles Stilinski is going back to Beacon Hills.

 

 

_tbc_

 

 


	4. Old Haunts

 

Stiles throws a flimsy red box onto Peter’s lap, eating is going to be a small challenge for him in cuffs.  Peter’s problem, not Stiles’.  The way Peter’s looking at the box like a bomb makes it even better, the dude is going to have to learn not to be such a snob.  That is the height of western civilization’s culinary aptitude there on his lap.   Show some respect.

“It’s the last stop for the next hundred miles, Hale.  Eat your fucking Happy Meal, or give it to the kids and starve.  I don’t give a shit.”  Braeden grates out loudly from the helm of the ‘ship’.

The partition window is the only source of fresh air in the van, Stiles debates the likelihood of his nose getting broken via annoyed merc if he were to just stick his head through there.  On one hand clean air free of werewolf, on the other a definite broken nose that will probably heal okay.  He takes an enormous bite of his burger instead of risking it and justifies the decision to himself as finally learning to pick his battles.  Stiles is the only one in the back not a wolf but is the only one who eats like one while the spoiled others pick at their food.  They do normally eat massive amounts; this is legitimate snobbishness going down.  Their complaints of chemicals and ‘this isn’t actually beef’ mean nothing to the mayo, old lettuce, meat and cheese orgy in his mouth.

Stiles enjoys his McDonald’s as the founding fathers intended and Peter digs out a Hello Kitty windup toy from the bottom of his Happy Meal box.  Fifty miles later a skirmish breaks out that ends with Hello Kitty getting crushed into very small very pink plastic pieces, either by Stiles’ ass or Jackson’s shoe it’s hard to tell in the chaos.  A McDonald’s Happy Meal: $2. 79, a Hello Kitty windup toy by itself: $1.50, the look on Peter Hale’s face as his Hello Kitty is destroyed by vindictive teenagers: priceless.

Peter blinks at them, “You were both only children weren’t you?”

Jackson snarls ever touchy on the family subject.

“Calm down, all of you.  You’re causing the van to rock.”  Duke sounds like an elementary school teacher at the end of an awfully long day.

Stiles almost expects Braeden to threaten to turn the van around like something out of a sitcom, but for the umpteenth time she’s no one’s mother.  Turning around isn’t an option anymore anyway, if it ever was. Two hours until they cross the county line is late to be reconsidering life choices.  The closer they get the more Stiles itches all over, he tries to goad Jackson into a conversation that doesn’t involve fucking with Peter but he’s adamant about staying angry and reluctant.  Jackson is a world-class aggressive pouter.  He’s also here in this van with Stiles despite hating every second of it.  Jackson’s reasons for leaving their hometown were just as valid as Stiles’, he going against his grain for a friend and Stiles isn’t going to forget that.  Which doesn’t mean he’s going to stop poking, because he’s not.  Stiles is a poker by nature.  Ask any dead body he’s been around, okay, that sounds more creepy than he intended.  This is what long term exposure to Peter Hale will do to you.

Morning fog hovers low over the road, the van cuts through it like a knife.  The fog thickens just as they blow past the Welcome to Beacon Hills sign before dispersing completely inside city limits in the most anticlimactic way possible.  Nestled in the hills and quietly infamous for disappearances Beacon Hills maintains a college town air, big yet isolated.  Unexpectedly for Stiles this doesn’t feel like a homecoming.  The town looks the same but Stiles feels the uncertainty of someone visiting a place for the first time.

Braeden murmurs an unenthusiastic, “We’re here.”

She drove the whole way without sleep citing a deep distrust of werewolves with her vehicles and that Stiles is already the most sleep deprived person she’s ever met who also sometimes has visions of dead people, so, no, he wasn’t driving either.  Stiles is reevaluating her human status, Braeden looks too awake and ready to throw down some martial arts moves for a real human being.  Braeden assures him she’s gone further on less.  Show off. He’s positive she can hike the Appalachian Trail with a can of peanuts and a half bottle of water, they get a motel room on the outskirts of town anyway.  Badasses need their beauty sleep too.

The motel is a run-down place with busted neon signs and a bad reputation throughout the town—one of those places securely on his Dad’s ‘Stiles You Can Never Ever Go Here Or Else’ lists.  It also happens to be the place Stiles used to meet the dude that got him his fake I.D.’s.  Braeden takes care of that now, her guy is better only in that he doesn’t smell like patchouli and low quality weed.  If your first shady motel meetings didn’t smell like that Stiles believes you haven’t truly lived.

Deucalion sighs after they open their motel room door.  Braeden gets her own, the rest of them will be sharing.  There’s only two beds in the room, the faint smell of mildew clings to the floral blankets but it’s hardly noticeable under the stench of cigarette smoke on just about everything.  Stiles plops his duffle on the bed nearest the door and grimaces, he hopes there’s a washing machine around.

“You can bunk with me, Stiles,” Peter runs his finger over a dingy headboard with scuffs in some very telling places, he casts Stiles an overly sultry look, “I know I’m not the Hale you’d prefer to share a bed with but I’m sure we can—”

“I will kill you in your sleep,” Stiles promises, “Please, give me one reason to kill you in your sleep.”

“Nothing untoward will be happening in this room, Mr. Stilinski, you will be with Mr. Whittemore.  I’ll be keeping an eye on Hale.”  Duke drops his own bag on a rickety nightstand, “I suggest you all get some rest.  As best you can.”  The last is plainly directed at Stiles.  His responding thumbs up is weak as hell.

Jackson is out like a light.  He didn’t sleep well in the prison transport van, which may be due to some Stiles related past trauma—he’s not sorry, the dude was a homicidal lizard.  Some things take precedence over personal comfort.  Duke sleeps pretty easily too, on the ride he’d been keen on keeping busy watching Peter who was watching Stiles who was mostly playing a shitty knock-off of Minecraft game on his new phone until the thing got hot to the touch.  Everyone besides Braeden and Stiles had eventually dozed, it was a _long_ ride.

Between the half-snores and full on motor boat snores of the other’s Stiles’ mind jumps subject to subject, errant thoughts zoom by too fast for him to really mull over nor is he all that interested in trying.  He’s just killing time.  At the very least he can let his body relax even if his brain hides the off switch like the last cookie during the zombie apocalypse.  Constantly counting his fingers eases his worries about nightmares, both waking and unconscious.  The itchiness under his skin Stiles felt coming into town is still there, slowly grinding away at him.

In the middle of their collective crash a sleeping Jackson pulls Stiles into a spooning position teddy bear style.  Wolves are tactile creatures when their more human sides aren’t reigning themselves in.  Jackson never slips up unless he’s exhausted or already sleeping.  Neither of them really mind that much, it’s just that Stiles is always the little spoon.  He’d complain if this was something they ever spoke about but don’t because of their big manly man egos.  Jesus, the list of shit they don’t talk about is getting terribly long.  The definitely not cuddling lets Stiles relax more for a while, he doesn’t fall asleep but the comfort is better than nothing.

A few hours later Stiles is pouring two energy shot drinks into his cheap motel room coffee to have with the score of junk food Braeden brings to their door—the real breakfast of champions.

“What’s the plan for today, kid?” Braeden asks distracted by competing with Jackson over any miscellaneous snack cake filled with cream.

“Nemeton.”  Stiles replies.  He snatches up the Reeses before Peter can get his paws on it.

 Peter finds another package in the bag fairly easily, asshole, “Just what every hostage wants to hear first thing in the morning.”

Duke informs the group as a whole, “Its past noon.”

Peter groans, “Even worse.”

“Here, Duke.”  Braeden quickly hands Duke a bag of pretzels, he frowns doubtfully at the ‘organic’ label and eats them.  He’ll take anything Braeden is willing to give him the fact she makes little considerations to a man she owes less than nothing to tells more about who she is than her skill with deadly weapons does.

“I mean,” Stiles stops long enough to wash down the candy with his cup of liquid rocket fuel, “I’m here for the nemeton, or what it wants, whatever.  So I can figure my head out.  I don’t have much of a plan after that.”

Braeden is fine with his non-answer, “Well, if all else fails, we shoot.”

“You can’t shoot a tree.”  Peter snorts.  He’s hoarded some treats over on the bed he shared with Duke tactically away from the rest of them.

Stiles quietly amends, not disagreeing, “ _Magical_ tree.  Magical tree stump technically.”

“Watch me.”  Braeden says pulling out her Desert Eagle from beneath her leather jacket and checking the clip in a smooth movement.

Duke’s trying not to smile, which is a shame because when he’s not a power hungry megalomaniac it’s a good smile.  In all fairness that’s true of all the people in the room.  Duke admonishes Peter, “I’d suggest you let the lady do as she pleases, Hale.”

“As if any of you could stop me.”

Peter dismisses them and retreats further back on the bed so he can cross his long legs somehow making the act look suspicious.  Contemplatively he regards Stiles, “Can you find the nemeton again?  I recall you and your merry band had to take some drastic measures last time.”

“I can find it.”  Stiles’ response is automatic, more importantly the words true.  Peter raises his eyebrows at his surety.  Stiles can feel the tug of the nemeton now that they are so close.  Not just a hook in his brain from miles and miles away but a real physical pull made of weight.  Of course he can find it.

“Alright, get cleaned up.” Braeden orders, “I’m going to do some recon.”

Jackson shifts from foot to foot, “Why?”

Braeden pats his face purposefully condescending, “Pretty boy, how else am I going to make sure the McCall pack doesn’t catch wind of us?  We gotta know where they all are first.  Schedules, places they’ll probably show up.  The works.”

Stiles hasn’t forgotten the need for discretion, he is untraceable via supernatural means but people still did have eyes. Last he checked. Lower than a low profile is needed here in town.  No one, that Stiles trusts, knows how to do that better than Braeden.  Stiles will avoid the more populated areas if he can but its hoodies under his jacket from here on out.  He’s a bit broader and starker around the face now but they’re in his hometown, Stiles is bound to be recognized.  A hoodie would be enough for most of the people who’ve only seen his face on a missing poster though.  Personal connections, as always, are the weak spots.

They leave the motel close to 2 in the afternoon.  Braeden’s gone only an hour and half before the van is packed up with the few essentials they’ll need out on the preserve.  Duke says he doesn’t mind staying behind with Peter, less variables to control can only be an advantage.  Stiles is super cool with leaving Peter behind as a rule, however…Peter knows stuff.  _Things_.  Probably as much as Duke, possibly more being a Hale.  Definitely as much as Deaton and a thousand times more willing to fucking share before shit goes to hell in a handbasket.  Unlike Deaton Peter would never entrust protecting Hale land to a bunch of dumb teenagers, and they _were_ dumb teenagers.  Some of them died.  Stiles can’t help but to think people who should still be alive would be if they had just been told more.  Peter always has his own agenda but he has a track record of helping.  Again, this is Hale land they were talking about too.  Talia took care of the nemeton before her death and while she hadn’t trusted a younger Peter with any of those responsibilities that doesn’t mean he knew nothing.  So, they bring Peter along.

“Hale land.  We should have a Hale with us.”  Stiles says by way of explanation.

 Peter fails to hide his surprise at the acknowledgement.  Stiles has seen Talia in his dreams for months, seen the Hale fire, felt the pulse of their death rush through the nemeton.  Of course it’s still Hale land.  The McCall pack, including when Stiles was a part of it, are just stewards.  No new alpha can match the amount of Hale blood saturated in the ground.  Scott did his best, and Scott’s best is better than anyone else’s Stiles knows.  He may have a best friend bias—a near two years of radio silence notwithstanding.  However Scott is young with limited resources.  Stiles doesn’t voice any of his thoughts on the matter, they would have sounded too much like encouragement to Peter and its best not to encourage your locally grown organic serial killers.

“Does that mean these can come off?”  Peter lifts his cuffed hands, “Because I wasn’t probably prepped for this sort of long term BDSM experience.”

“Oh my god, shut up!”  Stiles whines.  Jackson goes white and silently gets into the back of the van.  Peter does not stop.  By the time the cuffs are unlocked they are all uncomfortably familiar with proper BDSM etiquette.  Verbal consent is apparently very important, not that Stiles is mentally filing away notes or anything. 

Few cars share the highway with them to the preserve; it’s an odd time of day for a woodland excursion.  Peter leads them to a back road in, one nobody in the Sheriff’s department would be patrolling.  The dirt road narrows dramatically after a few miles forcing everyone to go on foot much to Jackson’s despair.  Hiking in the forest hasn’t exactly been on their to-do list in Seattle.  No disrespect to Seattle’s perfectly nice public parks.  Stiles isn’t complaining, it’s easier to follow the tug of the nemeton on foot anyway.

The weather is obviously warmer in California yet Braeden and Stiles continue to wear their jackets.  Armor in real sense.  Claws and teeth have a tougher time going through leather, particularly magically enhanced leather.  The enchantment fades every night but for now their jackets protect them from bullets and fangs alike.  Stiles is rocking a thin hoodie beneath his in case they meet the random jogger, hiker, or any bored stupid kids roaming for something interesting. 

The hoodie is red, because he eats irony for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Stiles walks to the forefront of their shady as fuck little group and takes them off the path to follow his freaking heart through the thicker part of the forest certain he’s going the right way to a freaking magical tree where human sacrifices took place.  Grudgingly, Stiles mutters to himself he should have never left Seattle at the same time he marches straight into the path of another low tree branch like they’re all aiming for him.  Duke stops it, and really its massive how did he not notice it, from thwacking Stiles right in the nose.  Jackson and Peter both snicker until they catch other doing the same thing and stop.  Stiles ducks under the offending branch with more anger than necessary and trudges along even faster taking abrupt turns without having to look where he’s heading. 

Faster and faster he hikes, no longer pissed but fueled by an urgency not wholly his own.  Jackson yells some not very nice things after him, his spiteful words echo of mossy trees—tree’s which are fighting Autumn the same way all trees do in California: tooth and nail with every intent of winning.  The trees always win.  Stiles doesn’t bother looking back to see if his friends are keeping up.  He doesn’t stop, somehow not stopping turns into flat-out running, he’s a dog being yanked along a chain.

The air in the forest thickens with old magic, heavy on the tip of the tongue.  Past the smell of moist earth and leaves is razor sharp copper.  Such a disconcerting shift to the atmosphere knocks Stiles stumbling out of his haze, he freezes at the border of burned trees.  An acre of land has been laid to waste, blackened to char right down to the dirt.  At the center of the desolation sits the nemeton, scorched a little but ultimately unharmed.  The others crash through the tree line in varying degrees of irritation which fades when they take in the sight before them.

Stiles whirls on Peter, “What the hell happened here?”

Peter blinks taken aback, “Contrary to popular belief, I am not personally responsible for every calamity that befalls this town.  I don’t know anything about this either, as much as I love to revel in your confidence in me.”

Stiles glares, not buying that at all.

Peter shrugs.

Stiles spends a few minutes getting his bearings, his maybe not metaphorical leash is suddenly slack.  Duke clears his throat a short while after, “Perhaps you should use those deductive skills, Mr. Stilinski?  The less time we spend here the better.”  Jackson and Peter look like they want to agree.

The nemeton isn’t anti-werewolf, quite the contrary from what knows about the relationship between the tree and the Hales.  No, the wolves’ hesitance stems from a source they can’t place.  An unwelcoming energy has settled here and it seems to be not fond of werewolves.  The wolves don’t edge any closer preferring to stay at the boundary line between burned and alive.  Stiles glances at Peter at the thought and shivers.  Braeden gives no fucks.  She draws her gun and takes her position at his six.  They approach the nemeton together.

“Looks like a bomb went off.”  Braeden murmurs.

In a matching quiet tone Stiles inquires curiously, “Seen a lot of bomb sites?”

“Yeah.”

“Woah, seriously?”

Braeden stiffens the closer they get, she moves from prowling behind him to taking point.  She may or may not actually shoot the tree, more than likely having a weapon in her hands makes her feel better—it sure as hell makes Stiles feel better.

“Four years in the military.  Joined the Marshals straight out of Iraq.  Saw a lot of bombs and worse.”  Braeden shares for the first time.  Talking about her past isn’t something she makes a habit out of unless sharing was relevant to a job she needed Stiles’ help on.

Stiles pauses, feeling like he owes her something of his own and on the plus side their conversation is helping distract his fight or flight instincts, “Mieczyslaw.”

“Uh, bless you?”

“Rude.  No, it’s my name.”

“Wow.”  Braeden’s tone implies he has some sort of grievous illness.

“Yeah.”  Stiles’ tone implies he does too instead of beloved deceased Polish grandpa.

They stop a foot away from the nemeton’s base. The first thing Stiles thought back when the whole ‘let’s all hold hands and sacrifice ourselves to this magical bloodthirsty tree on the off chance we can save our parents’ thing went down was the nemeton would make a good table.  His weird internalized process of thinking of trees as pre-furniture is probably the reason why Stiles is kind of iffy with pure Earth-based magic.  The nemeton _would_ make a great table, rustic, someone should make it into one and flatten this hellmouth town while they’re at it.  As if the nemeton can read his mind, and who’s to say it can’t, a wave of negative energy rolls toward him like an aggressive playground push—not painful but enough to start something.  If the nemeton is sentient enough to have a grasp of a personality that personality is rooted firmly on the asshole side of the club.  Stiles likes to think he’s vice president of that club.  The crown obviously goes to Jackson.

“I felt that,” Braeden says, tense, “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine.  You’ll probably sense magic here better than usual.  Even people with no aptitude for the Ways can feel shit this big.  The energy coming off here blankets everything else.  I can’t really tell if our bomb was magic or not.”

Braeden nods understandingly, “Which would you rather?”

Stiles scrubs his face then kneels down closer, “On one hand we could have a badass magic user on the other we have an idiot who for some dumb as hell reason thought burning the nemeton would be without consequence or would work in the first place.  Everything has consequences.  When it comes to this place the consequences are fucking cosmic.”

Hesitantly Stiles reaches a hand out placing it on the rough bark of the stump.  Expecting a rush of visions wherein all his questions are answered is perhaps too much to ask, he’s still disappointed when he gets nothing except a palm covered in soot.  The nemeton won’t, or maybe more accurately can’t, tell him directly what’s going on.  It wants to, that matters.  Maybe.  As magical powerhouses go nemetons are the most neutral, good or evil depending upon who is trying to tap into that power.  Stiles believes the Beacon Hills nemeton is predisposed to the children who sacrificed themselves to it, to the Hales who bled for it, and to a smaller extent the town itself.  Their nemeton is not as neutral as it could be.  That matters too.

Stiles removes his hand and starts tracing concentric circles around the nemeton searching the ground.  The wolves watch him skeptically, Braeden watches everything else.  His so called investigative skills—sounds better than sheer dumb luck, serve him well.  At the northern most point of the burned area Stiles trips over a huge chunk of crystal embedded in the ground.

“Oh, great, “ Jackson mocks from too far away to be saying anything the coward, “a rock.”

The face Stiles makes at him over his shoulder is borderline grade school.  Stiles shakes him off and turns back to the crystal which might be amethyst, he’s not sure with all the black and his general lack of geological knowledge.  When he’s needed crystals or stone Stiles trusted the new age lady Duke buys his funky herbal teas from to not lead him astray.  Crystals are conduits for whatever purpose a specific crystal correlates to.  Stiles checks each of the other cardinal directions on a hunch, he finds three more crystals, all different all matte black on the side the fire touched.

“Ah, shit.”  Stiles mumbles to himself.

Braeden pops up over his shoulder unexpectedly, everyone is getting bells he swears on old Grandpa Mieczyslaw’s grave, “What is it?”

“BFN.”

“BFN?”

Stiles sighs deep, _deep_ in his bones, “Bad Fucking News.”  He dusts his hands off on his jeans and performs a spin like he’s a ringmaster, “All this?  Is one big summoning circle. A failed one. A circle like this is meant to do only two things: open a door to somewhere or bring something through.  They tried to use these crystals to power their magic up but it must have collapsed, killed everything inside except for Grandmother Willow’s vodka aunt.”

She hums, “Why’d it fail?”

“Best guess?  This is a nemeton they’re trying to use and they used, honestly Jackson’s right, a bunch of rocks.  It’s like trying to make rechargeable batteries compatible with a nuclear reactor.  Of course it wouldn’t work.  Doesn’t matter what they were trying to do the nemeton always requires… _sacrifice_ to function.  There’s no bodies around, human or animal.  No bones.  The remains could have been incinerated but death used in magic leaves an impression.”

“So our magic user tried to get something for nothing.”  Braeden summarizes.

“That’s the gist, yup.”

“Well, shit.”

“Yup.  I think this guy’s—”

“Or gal’s.”

“This _person’s_ residual mojo is what’s got our wolves’ tales between their legs.”  A flurry of angry protests come from the werewolves, they move no closer, “Safe to say they’re probably not a dog person.”

“The dog jokes never really get old do they?”  Braeden muses with a mean smile.

“Never.”

Step one is complete, now on to step two: find the idiot messing with the nemeton then kick their ass, get a peaceful night’s sleep, get tacos on the way back to Seattle.  The perfect plan and a win-win all around, unless you were the idiot who Stiles fully intends to nogitsune the fuck out of.

They rejoin the disgruntled werewolves and everybody’s got a theory on why someone would want to try something as dangerous as using the nemeton to summon anything.  Stiles listens to them all on the way back to the van, no one offers to help him carry the four big ass crystals in his arms—he plans on using whatever traces of magic are left in them to find the source.  Duke’s opinions Stiles takes seriously, Jackson’s alien landing site hypothesis less so.  He and Jackson really need to stop marathoning Ancient Aliens late at night, Stiles hates that show but watches it anyway because Jackson is a TV hog.  Though aliens would be a nice change of pace.

Yes, theories abound, everyone has one.  All but Peter, who had surveyed the scene at the nemeton distantly but no less thoroughly.  The crystals get placed under the metal seat Stiles chooses in an irreverent pile.  Peter glances down at the pile, unconcerned.

“You’re too quiet.”  Stiles observes after Peter sits across from him, “If you’re quiet you’re scheming.  I’m not opposed to scheming on principal.  You’re brand of scheming usually sucks for the rest of us though.”

“How many times do you think you can say the word ‘Scheming’ in one breath?”  Peter leans back, suspiciously, and interlaces his fingers over his stomach, _suspiciously_.

“How many times do you think I can I make you stop breathing before someone stops me?  The answer is endless, Peter, no one would stop me, because you’re being a shady dick.”

“So little—”

“If you say ‘faith’ I swear to God I’m going to let Jackson punch you as much as he wants.”  Jackson slides in next to Stiles and perks up at the words, Duke follows and takes his usual place beside Peter.

“Unlike some I don’t spout off every little thought that runs through my head, Stiles.”

“Okay, first of all, I’ve gotten way better at hiding my feelings! And wow, that’s some sad shit to say out loud.  I know I just proved your point, Peter, shut up.”

Peter’s lips start to quirk up, “Now you want me to shut up?”

“In all occasions that would be preferable.”  Duke says, “but I believe Mr. Stilinski is worried about you plotting something nefarious.”

“Oh, he’s always plotting something nefarious.  I just want to know if it involves me or mine otherwise I don’t fucking care.”

Peter cocks an eyebrow the same way he always does when Stiles says something that surprises him.  The wolf sags a bit more naturally into the side of the van, “You can calm down, Stiles—”

“I don’t think you understand how literally impossible that is.”  Jackson says earning a betrayed look from Stiles.  Duke levels his own look at the pair of them stopping whatever totally mature exchange they were about to have.

Peter scowls at being jostled from his reclining position when Braeden jerks the van into motion without warning.  It’s like his image of nonchalance being ruined shakes him loose, “I was simply pondering the validity of your basis.”

“My basis.”  Stiles repeats.

“Your assumption that this isn’t all about you.  Humility is for the lower, boring turnips, Stiles.  You are not boring.”

Stiles isn’t all that special either, he’s _new_.  New doesn’t mean good or important, two words Stiles had never applied to himself anyway.  Obviously he didn’t roll into town with the idea any of this is about him specifically.  At most the nemeton needs a tool and that’s what Stiles is _allowing_ himself to be.  Scott just as easily could be that tool,  Stiles figures his own mind already came  pre-broken for easy communication access.  A contrary idea, one where he’s being targeted specifically, is a pretty shit one.  Worse, it makes a convoluted sort of sense, depending on their magic user’s motivations.  Stiles has done a good job of pissing quite a few people off in his short life but at the end of the day there are a billion easier ways to kill somebody.

The shittiest thing about Peter Hale that inherently sucks so hard it needs repeating?  The dude is usually right.

Peter’s bright blue eyes settle on him, “Denial doesn’t become you.  Use your head.”

“If this is a lure,” Duke grudgingly concedes, “Its worked well enough.”

Jackson furrows his brow, “Not really?  That piece of shit tree’s been giving Stilinski hell for months.  He’s only just now decided to come back.”

“Patience is a virtue.”  Peter sing-songs.

Stiles sits back in his seat and absorbs this all in.  A manipulative mastermind behind the scenes sounds paranoid, which Stiles is, and cliché, which Beacon Hills is in a horror movie trope-tastic way.  If someone is out there wanting to get at him, control him, Stiles resolves they are going to deeply regret it. 

 “Either way,” Stiles finally speaks after a few minutes of them talking over him, “We find them.”

“That may take longer than you hope.  You’re certain you’ve brought enough supplies?”  Duke asks.

Stiles shoots the older wolf a cock-sure grin, “Duh, dude.”   True enough, most of the things Stiles packed are for miscellaneous magical purposes.  One never knew when a ghost-banishing incense would be needed, he likes being the guy who’s prepared for anything.

Done with being the center of attention Stiles steers the conversation to food—always easy to do with hungry wolves, and they convince Braeden to stop at the only decent Chinese joint in town.  Stiles feels bad watching her carry out enough food to feed a supernatural army without being able to help.  Duke at least opens the doors for her.  Over half of the food is gone before they make it back to the motel.  Stiles risks life and limb guarding a container of orange chicken and fried rice for Braeden, but they don’t get a chance to bring the food inside.

Jackson starts growling the second the van pulls into the motel parking lot.  Peter and Deucalion also go on high alert.  Not a squirrel in sight, Stiles thinks to himself, must be trouble.  Even as he thinks it Stiles just shoves another potsticker in his mouth.  He’s hungry too, sue him.

Braeden has barely stopped when Jackson shoves Stiles back into a corner near the partition window and throws the back doors open to leap out half shifted.  Stiles doesn’t feel the prickle of threat on the back of his neck like he apparently should and Duke isn’t on Jackson’s heels like he normally would be either, Stiles reaches up to the where he was sitting and grabs his claimed box of potstickers.  He’s pretty good with chopsticks, another thing he didn’t used to be good at that seems small and trivial but really isn’t when he thinks about it.

“Hey, kid?”  Braeden’s voice filters in above him through the window, she sounds pissed and resigned.  No guns though, so Stiles instincts are on the money.  He only needed a minute to figure out what’s happening after they stopped.  He knows what waiting for him outside.  Only one thing gets Jackson’s hackles rising so easily, other wolves.

“Can’t I stay in the car?”  Stiles is aware of how much he sounds like a whiny teenager.  Strictly speaking he is still a whiny teenager.  His heart is hammering away, and his hands have gone clammy.  Staying in the car sounds like the best idea ever.

“We could have kept driving if Jackson hadn’t jumped out, can’t change that now.  You always knew you were gonna have to face the music sooner or later.”

“Not late enough.”

“Jackson’s is going to tear that cherub kid’s face off if you don’t get out there soon.”  Braeden reasons.  She isn’t going to volunteer to get between to wolves she means.  Jackson might listen to Deucalion but that would require Deucalion to ‘Alpha’ him,  which he’s never done before.  If it didn’t work trying to pin him down with his authority might make Jackson worse.  The safest thing to do is get out there and show Jackson he’s not being threatened.

Peter is clearly as entertained as Duke is apprehensive, they hover at the open doors watching what sounds like to be a significant scuffle.  Stiles hears Scott’s Alpha voice demanding them to stop.  One set of growling cuts off, Jackson’s increases.

“You can shove your red eyes up your ass, McCall!”  Jackson shouts, and yep, that’s Stiles’ cue.

He’d like to believe his entrance is a cool slow motion worthy reveal.  The truth is if not for Duke Stiles would have landed face first into the pavement.  Stiles regains his composure viciously ignoring Peter’s chuckling.

“Stiles…” Scott breathes, the red fades into a softer soulful brown, he seems unsure.  Scott stands a little taller, and has finally started to pack on a little of that famed Alpha muscle.  He looks capable, strong, and also like maybe someone with actual fashion sense picks out his clothes for him.  His disbelief doesn’t stop Scott from rushing over and sweeping Stiles into a bone-crushing hug.  Jackson tenses up, Stiles raises his fingers in a low-key ‘stop’ gesture.  Jackson snarls back at him and yet he doesn’t try to pry them apart.  Werewolves, Jesus.

Stiles had been prepared for a confrontation, not… _this_.  But what _this_ is is Scott friggin’ McCall, the guy’s superpower is exceeding expectations.  Any efforts to push away the stinging in Stiles eyes are futile.

“H-Hey, buddy.”  Stiles wraps his arms around his best friend just as tightly.

“You’re okay.”  Scott croaks into his shoulder. 

“You can’t be serious.”  Isaac spits.  Isaac stands next to a shorter, younger kid with bright eyes and a blanketing aura of lost puppy about him.

Scott pulls back, he’s eyes are as red-rimmed as Stiles’, “Isaac—”

“No!,”  Isaac takes a step forward, Jackson does the same, “He gets off the Villains R Us bus after being missing like nothing’s wrong and we’re just supposed to be cool with that!?  He doesn’t have a _scent_!”

“Isaac!  It’s _Stiles_!”  Scott yells back like that’s the only thing that could possibly matter right now.  A piece of Stiles that’s been chilled for far too long floods with warmth. 

“Is it?”  Isaac asks honestly questioning without raising his voice.  He doesn’t need to, Stiles flinches at the implication anyway.  Isaac has a history of being very good at hitting where it hurts.  Not because he means to, more like because he knows what the other end feels like and can mimic it easily.  Isaac isn’t a bad person.  A crappy life gave him a crappy attitude, he’s just practical.  He and Stiles were too much alike to ever really get along.  If the situation were reversed Stiles would be just as suspicious and angry at Scott for having so much damn faith in people.  Plus, look at them, they had Deucalion and Peter Hale hanging out with them, and Stiles and Braeden were rocking the ‘we are morally dubious’ leather jackets.

“Oooohh,”  The short puppy interrupts, Stiles can almost see the light bulb turning on above the kid’s head, “Holy crap, you’re the poltergeist guy everyone’s obsessed with but never talk about!”

Scott winces and Stiles sort of marvels at how Scott managed to find someone with less tact than him.

Jackson automatically corrects, “He was _possessed_ , twerp.”

“What the hell,” Stiles points to the kid, “is that?”

“That’s, um, a Liam.”  Scott’s guilty look is a thing to be dreaded.  That look has gotten them in trouble with both of their parents a hundred different times because no matter how sterling a lie Stiles spun one look at Scott undid it all his hard work.

Stiles scrutinizes the boy who takes a few nervous steps away from them.  The wolf in him is obvious, restless.

“He’s Scott’s beta.”  Jackson clarifies in a harsh tone what Stiles can’t sense on his own, identifying some werewolf trait like seeing a family resemblance between cousins.

“Your beta,” Stiles speaks the words slowly then explodes, “I can’t believe you had a baby without me!”

Scott in the same incredulous tone shoots back, “I didn’t have him, I bit him!”

“You’re way too young to be a father, Scott!”

“It was an accident!  I think I’ve been doing okay!”

“Oh my God!”

Liam blinks owlishly, “Um, I have a dad.  He’s a doctor.”

Stiles shushes him, “The adults are talking, puppy.”

“Is that what’s happening?”  Deucalion murmurs.  Peter hums agreeably.  They’ve migrated from the van to flank around Jackson.  Braeden is nowhere to be seen.

Isaac glares daggers at his alpha.  Scott deflates under the gaze.  Scott and Stiles are Scott and Stiles, they step back into how they were with each other easy as breathing.  Their back and forth is more than familiar banter, its Stiles derailing Scott from a conversation he doesn’t want to have with inane chatter and Scott letting him have the out of habit because there’s no forcing Stiles to tell anyone anything unless he wants to.  A weight settles over Scott, Stiles can see this time is different.  Everyone is so different now.  He’s not going to anything go.

The sun dips low in the sky casting the young alpha in an orange glow.  Stiles’s shadow stretches out just short of Scott’s feet, Stiles takes a subtle step backwards.

“Where have you been?”  Scott has steel in his voice, “Why are you with them?  We never stopped looking for you.  We tried _everything_ to find you!”

Because Stiles is The Worst at impulse control, Scott was 90 percent of it in high school, he flaps his hands like a bird and asks, “Did you send a raven?”

“What?  Dude, this is serious!  We thought—we thought you were…Oh, God, I need to tell your dad you’re okay!”

Scott pulls his phone out and Stiles doesn’t even think about what’s he’s doing, he catches Scott’s wrist in a tight grip.  Slithering wisps of black smoke envelop the phone, the screen shatters and the phone is deader than dead.  The next thing Stiles knows his face is scraping gritty asphalt and his sigils are flaring up.  Stiles chuckles into the dirt, now _this_ is what he was expecting.  In hindsight maybe cackling like a maniac isn’t the best thing to do with a werewolf pressing claws into the back of his neck.

“Isaac, let go of him!”  Scott demands.

The weight holding him down is gone then Jackson is there hauling him up and pushing him at Duke so he can go after Isaac again.

“You saw!”  Isaac shouts parrying Jackson’s clawed lunges, “He’s not right, his _eyes_ , Scott.  He’s not human!”

Jackson lands a kick hard enough to knock Isaac back, “Neither are you, you fucking idiot!”

Peter pulls back Jackson while Scott manages to get Isaac under control.  Awkward heavy breathing settles over each of the groups.  Public shit like this is the reason why Stiles is convinced everyone in Beacon Hills actually knows about the supernatural.  There’s was probably a town hall meeting his dad never told him about and everyone had just agreed to well and truly Nightvale it, ergo, “If you see something, say nothing and drink to forget.”

“Stiles?”  Scott eventually asks, packing every possible question he could inquire into a single utterance of one name.

Stiles dusts off his clothes and ponders how to phrase his response, how to put it lightly and to the point and gloss over the bits with the pain inducing magic tattoos and the occasional murder.  Not murder, self-defense.  Preemptive self-defense.

“Funny story.  So, I’m magic.”

Not horrible.

“Uh, half magic, sort of, all magic in a more technical sense.  Half dark kistune, though, like, for sure.  But I’m not possessed!  Probably should have led with that.  I think I’m pretty hard to possess these days because reasons.”

Okay, that could have gone better.

Scott starts to shake his head, “I, what?”

“Isaac’s right about me, Scott.  I am dangerous.  You shouldn’t be around me.  You can’t call my dad because seeing me will just hurt him worse in the long run.  Once I’m done here I’ll be gone again.  You were never even supposed to know I was here.  I should have known, though, you’re you.”  Stiles smiles halfway sad and halfway annoyed, “By the way, how the hell did you find me in the first place?  You looked pretty surprised.”

Finally, gradually, Scott’s hurt expression turns thunderous.  He deserves to be angry, he should be allowed to be more than just understanding and calm all the damn time.  No one can be everything for everyone, Stiles has tried.  People tear when stretched too thin.  Scott is stronger but he’s still spread out like butter on toast, only the toast is Beacon Hills and also on fire.

“Deaton told us.  Not about you guys, um, specifically.”  Liam pipes up.  Isaac scowls at him and the kid scowls right back.  The puppy has some fire.

“The old druid has a way to monitor comings and goings around the nemeton?”  Asks Peter, he’s let go of Jackson and maintains a defensive position keeping his back away from everyone.  The nemeton is infamously hard to find, it would also be hard to keep tabs on.  Stiles has a sneaking suspicion it moves somehow.  The how’s, when’s, and why’s remain a mystery.

“Don’t act like you don’t know.”  Scott snaps.  Some hatchets never get buried, Stiles supposes.  Scott and Peter will never be on good terms.

“You knew Deaton might know who cast the circle and didn’t say anything?  Why am I not surprised?”  Stiles sighs.  Faint tickling over his cheek and forehead clue him in on why Isaac and Scott are giving him patented Beacon Hills What The Fuck looks.  He’s healing.  They’re gonna have to get used to it.

Unrepentantly Peter shrugs, “I’m not a fan of the good doctor.  You were doing fine on your own.”

“We’re going to Deaton’s right now.”  Scott decides for reasons that plainly have nothing to do with burnt out summoning circles in the forest.

Braeden appears from behind the van with a smirk on her face and her hand hovering over where she keeps her gun holstered, she reeks of wolfsbane, “The kid isn’t going anywhere he doesn’t want to so maybe you should rephrase that, Alpha McCall.”

Funny how the most intimidating person making a scene in the parking lot is neither a werewolf nor magic.

Duke looks to him for assent, “Mr. Stilinski?”

Stiles narrows his eyes, “You want Deaton to make sure I’m me, you want him to do some druid-y tests and you want to interrogate me.”  Stiles lists off blankly.  Scott doesn’t deny any of it.

“Alright, we can do that.”  He owes Scott some answers and they need to talk to the vet now anyway, Deaton’s always more forthcoming when Scott’s around, “But you gotta agree with some things from our side before we go anywhere with you.  To start you will not try to knock me out at Deaton’s and reenact the Exorcist—I know how many nightmares that movie gave you when we were kids Scott, just don’t.  Also you won’t tell anyone else I’m here, you let me go when I decide to go.  Stop looking for me, don’t follow me.”

Scott shocks him for the third time by breezily replying, “Okay, Stiles.”  Then smiling his bright ‘I just beat Stiles at Halo’ smile.

Stiles squints trying not to balk.  Scott McCall is moral and good and made of the same stuff the Powerpuff Girls are.  He is also the guy who agrees to follow his best friend out into the woods with the intentions of finding a dead body.  More than once.  Scott can be unexpectedly devious when he wants to be.  Stiles knows this, Scott knows Stiles knows.  There’s no easy win here for either of them.  They are brothers and Scott will always be willing to give him a chance.  Stiles hates how much he wants one then hates that getting a second chance shouldn’t even be on his radar.  He can’t stay.  Next time it might not be just a phone he ruins without meaning to.

For now they have a druid to see, preferably before the dude is mid-cleaning out the dog cages.

 

 

_tbc_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’ve put Braeden’s age around mid 30’s. She’s canonically a Marshal and she’s been chasing the Desert Wolf around for years apparently? Plus side merc’n. Military experience made sense to me. Unlike the ages on this show. I placed Derek, as Stiles says way back in episode one , only a few years older than Scott and Stiles—in my neck of the woods a few means about three or four. Stiles in this fic is nearing 19 in case y’all were wondering. Seriously though, fuck the weird age thing on this show.
> 
> Things will be getting more Sterek-y real soon. Thank you guys for the comments and the kudos, y’all are lovely.


	5. Walking on Knives

Shovels and Dirt

  
Chapter 5: Walking on Knives

  
Stiles sputters at the water being spritzed in his face, there’s little paw prints on the spray bottle which doesn’t really have anything to do with the way Stiles flails off the examination table with a surprised squawk.

  
He scrubs wildly at his dripping face, “Is that—is that fucking holy water!?”

  
Deaton regards him blithely, “…No.”

  
The responding outraged face Stiles has is completely warranted, “Dude.”

  
It’s totally holy water. Holy water, no matter the religion involved in making it, always smelled like frankincense to Stiles and left a short-lived tingly sensation on the skin. He’s just saying, he knows the stuff and also Deaton’s a low-key asshole. So low-key was he that Stiles had mistaken it for Zen for years. Deaton does have some Zen, but all the other issues Stiles has with him overshadow any endearing Obi-Wan vibe the doc gives off.

  
“These are necessary precautions Mr. Stilinski.”

  
“Uh huh.” Stiles uses the sleeves of his hoodie to mop up the remaining water and stares down the vet until the older man puts the bottle down.

  
Scott cringes, “Sorry, man.”

  
Stiles shrugs playing off how uncomfortable he’s getting, “I’ve had worse things on my—”

  
“For the sake of my sanity you are not finishing that sentence.” Braeden cuts in, less than an arm’s length beside her Jackson gags so dramatically he nearly chokes for real. Scott blinks then a delightful dawning horror takes over his face. Stiles grins at them all feeling marginally better about this whole ‘inspect Stiles for evil’ thing.

  
The line of herb jars Deaton sets out next dashes that brief feeling. The herbs aren’t unfamiliar to Stiles, he recognizes most of them right off the bat. The few he doesn’t are too generic looking to call without popping them open and taking the kind of sniff every chemistry teacher would warn against when dealing with unknown substances. Deaton tests each one on Stiles, most is a gentle rub on his hand one he has to chew and spit out. He purposefully chews in the most obnoxious way he possibly can and doesn’t break eye contact with a slightly disturbed but ultimately unimpressed Deaton.

  
Jackson glowers at the application of each herb, he and Braeden stand watching closely. They picked up on Stiles’ anxiety the moment they entered the clinic. The last time Stiles had been here he had put a sword through his best friend’s guts then got poisoned, not too long before that he’d allowed himself to be drowned in a magical ice bath. The joint isn’t exactly a den of good times for him, couldn’t be for Scott either. Though Scott also helped the furry non-lethal citizens of the town here, maybe the good outweighed the bad for him, maybe he was just a stronger person.

  
Reading Scott isn’t harder than it used to be, only different. Scott didn’t feel like Stiles’ alpha anymore but he had no idea how that worked from the other side. Scott isn’t really treating him much differently; he’s patient more patient than he used to be, but still steadfast in his belief that Stiles is Stiles, enough so that he asks Isaac to wait outside. Isaac is more or less cool with it, probably so he can keep an eye on the other two noticeably gone figures.

  
Deucalion and Peter opted to stay in the van, neither of them are too comfortable around Deaton. Bad blood, and no one wants to push the matter. Deaton may be a sort of makeshift emissary for Scott but he is a sneaky dude with a poison for almost every supernatural creature Stiles has ever heard of. The added stress of the current Beacon Hills nonsense is hardly helping sooth any old wounds. Duke and Peter have enough sense to be more focused on the current nonsense than the past. For now. Scott gave them the skinny on the said nonsense on the drive over. The Beacon Hills pack had been dealing with another string of murders. The victims share nothing in common save for the way they were killed, their hearts and eyes were ripped out. Ritualistically. The BHPD jumped on the old cliché Satanist angle pretty quick without the resident sheriff to nip any sensationalism in the bud. Real Satanists were honestly some of the nicest people Stiles had ever met too, disgraceful.

  
Stiles’ dad had been on and off leave for the entirety of his son’s disappearance, the department has been cutting him some slack but their wells of patience were drying up. Missing kid or not an ultimatum is coming the sheriff’s way. Scott delivered that last piece of information with a hard look at Stiles. Stiles outwardly matched it, inwardly he wilted in shame. Rather than touch the subject with a ten foot pole with Scott Stiles asks after the rest of the pack.

  
For the moment, they were all in town. Lydia graduated high school early but was in the middle of taking an “extended” gap year before she packed up and headed off to MIT. Danny was already attending Stanford, he drove to Beacon Hills almost every weekend though since he started his Fall semester. Scott, Malia, Cora, and Isaac all had summer school year till graduation thanks to constant supernatural problems but got there in the end which is more than Stiles could say for himself. He did have some great fake ID’s and paperwork that said he was a Berkley grad. He’d needed a PHD once, for reasons aka Braeden’s shady business dealings.

  
The short puppy-wolf named Liam is actually a senior, he wasn’t happy to be sent home by Scott before they all went to see Deaton. Scott mentioned a couple of names Stiles didn’t recognize to the younger boy to get him to agree, both were wolves and Scott told Stiles it was a long story involving hand to Jesus mad scientists and some random dude Stiles barely remembered from fourth grade. Theo something or other, he’d apparently been disappointed Stiles was nowhere to be found and that mattered little after Kira sent his ass straight to hell. Scott was uncomfortable going into much about Kira. He’d seemed guilty about something but Stiles wasn’t in the position to ask. Scott didn’t mention Derek at all.

  
Stiles is amid wondering why Scott would avoid the subject of Derek when Deaton stealthily jams a needle into his neck the second Stiles fully relaxes enough to sit back down on the cold examination table. He yelps and Jackson shoves Deaton away with a snarl. The shove was actually pretty gentle for Jackson, he is still on his best behavior. Stiles wants to offer him a Scooby snack and see if Jackson tries to punch him. Deaton isn’t particularly alarmed, he raises his hand in a placating gesture but it looks more menacing than he intends with the syringe still in his hand glinting under the humming fluorescent lights.

  
“What the fuck was that?!” Jackson roars.

  
Braeden jerks Stiles over to inspect his neck, “Stiles?”

  
“Its fine, its fine…it’s kinda numb?” Numb isn’t a great sign when needles are involved. Stiles read somewhere the last thing death row inmates felt after the lethal injection was a burning numbness. No way he’s dying in the same place his dad’s nosey neighbor got her cocker spaniel neutered.

  
Deaton makes a noise of interest at the reaction. Stiles is about to open his mouth and let loose every insulting word he knows but stops. The numb starts to burn, really freaking burn. Gasping for breath Stiles can only hang on to Braeden as the burn ratchets up to pain then fizzles out just as quickly into nothing. Stiles slumps, vanilla and leather fill his nose and he couldn’t care less about Braeden’s other arm shooting out and grabbing onto Jackson’s shoulder before he can tear the doc a new one. Braeden says nothing but her face is a study of flat lines, it’s the look Stiles associates with someone firmly etching themselves onto her shit list. The list is not long, less because she’s forgiving and more because she’s a very proficient mercenary.

  
Scott rushes forward, stops short of touching Stiles’ back and hovers awkwardly, he scowls fiercely at Deaton, “What did you give him?”

  
“Nothing he hasn’t had before. Don’t worry, I can now say with confidence Stiles is not being possessed.” Deaton says.

  
Jackson pulls away from Braden with an irritated look, he growls at Deaton, “I can say with confidence you’re a dick.”

  
Stiles chokes on a laugh. Braeden deems him fine enough to stand on his own, she rights him after one more look over.

  
“I’m sorry,” Deaton’s not sorry at all, “but if you were possessed I couldn’t risk warning you. Though we can hardly rest easy.”

  
Stiles shakes out any residual discomfort from his limbs, he ignores the shady vet’s knowing look. Too knowing, Stiles tugs down his long sleeves over his knuckles. He subverts the blatant gaze by angling himself more behind Jackson and Braeden than in front of them then subverts Deaton’s blatant curiosity with his own questions that have been bugging the hell out of him since Scott surprising the hell out of him in the parking lot.

  
“So, since I passed the ‘jab him in the neck while he’s not paying attention’ test, Scotty said you’re how he found us. How in the world did you do that? Because the nemeton is like Baba Yaga’s freaking hut. Wards or spells wouldn’t have done much.” Deaton’s eyebrows go up, Stiles simply shrugs, “I’ve been around. I know shit.”

  
“You’re quite right, the magic of the nemeton counteracts most magical means of surveillance.”

  
Stiles bravely leans his hands on the table between him and Deaton, “Then you used non magical means.”

  
Deaton is used to leading people to their own conclusions but isn’t as used to them jumping to the right one so quickly, “Again, correct. We used motion sensors imbedded into the wood and warded those against prying eyes instead.”

  
“The sensors go off, you call the resident alpha and he tracks any weird scents to their source. Huh, clever.” Stiles can concede that, they should’ve had something keeping an eye on the nemeton as soon as they knew it existed. Talia Hale kept her watch when she was alive, no one’s really picked up her torch fully in the way she intended her successor to but a lot of knowledge died with her.

  
“If that’s the case, you would have known about the damage done at that weird tree stump right after it happened.” Braeden’s voice carries enough accusation to bristle Scott and Deaton both.

  
“We were there right after everything was burned, no scents though. I mean, nothing strong enough for us to follow.” Scott confirms.

  
“Did you find anything?” This whole thing is starting feel like pulling teeth, everyone on Stiles’ side of the board are starting to lose their already scant tolerance.

  
Deaton’s face goes carefully blank, relenting only when Scott urges him to share, “We did find this.”

  
Deaton produces a small bundle of cloth from inside one of his cabinets of magical freaking wonders. Wrapped in the cloth is a large silver coin, a worn intricate pattern decorates the front, Deaton flips it over between his fingers and reveals a solid white circle freshly painted on the back. He holds the coin up, “You seem to be more ‘immersed’, do you know what this is?”

  
All the energies around the coin scream “target”, really, that’s exactly what it is. Or maybe more accurately it’s the little black dot in the middle of an optical illusion that when stared at makes the image seem like its moving.

  
“It’s a foci.” Stiles answers confidently.

  
“Very good.”

  
Stiles smiles more pleased than cocky.

  
“What’s a foci?” Scott asks shouldering in next to Stiles. They bump shoulders and Stiles doesn’t even think about it, it feels so normal and if Stiles wanted to embrace a rare wisp of honesty—comforting .

  
“A foci is a focus point when channeling large amounts of magic, usually used when the actual object the practitioner is trying to channel is too much for them so they use other objects as a sort of funnel. Or thet’re used by beginners. Beginners in magic tend to have a severe lack of beginners luck.” Surprisingly Deaton’s explanation is actually informative.

  
Scott sends a questioning look at Stiles and he clarifies further out of habit, “Burnt-off eyebrows, exploding showerheads—”

  
“Instantly breaking every mirror in the house.” Braeden adds judgmentally.

  
“Somehow fucking with every traffic light within a square mile.” Jackson joins in.

  
“Okay,” Stiles huffs, “now I’m just feeling targeted.”

  
Braeden coos, “Poor baby.”

  
Scott grins from ear to ear, “You burned off your eyebrows?”

  
“One time!”

  
Braeden shakes her head, “Twice.”  
“What!? When?”

  
“Remember,” She draws her hand down her face as if she had a long beard, “that guy?”

  
“With that thing in the place?”

  
“Yeah.”

  
“Oh…yeah,” Stiles stares of into space for a couple of seconds then holds up two fingers to demonstrate how truly miniscule the amount is, “fine, _twice_.”

  
Scott blinks, confused but the smile isn’t leaving his lips. Stiles really wishes he would stop looking so warmly at him, he’s always been kind of defenseless against those sort of looks. Deaton saves him from doing something ridiculous like hugging Scott and never letting go by cleaing his throat. Stiles shoots the vet a sharp grin, “Sorry, carry on doc.”

  
“The coin is Greek in origin, and from what I can tell very old.” Deaton places the coin back on the cloth and pushes it toward Stiles to let him inspect it for himself.

  
To Stiles the coin is as used-up at the crystals they dug out of the ground. He can sense its purpose but it could likely never be used again. Around the inner edges is a worn inscription that’s barely legible. Stiles puts everything about it to memory, if he were dealing with anyone else he’d pocket the coin on the way out however Deaton would notice and he’s trying to stay on good terms with Scott.

  
He gives the coin back, “Know any ancient Greek?”

  
The vet does his I-know-more-than-I-let-on smile Stiles hates, “A bit.”

  
Stiles knows a bit too, he gives Deaton a mockery of the man’s own coy twist of lips but says nothing.

  
Ancient Greek isn’t Stiles’ forte by any means. Most of the stuff Braeden brings him tends to be on the Celtic and Norse side, but magical objects weren’t native to a few countries alone—every place on the planet had some magic in it. The Romans loved the shit out of their magical texts and the Aztecs, as far as Stiles is concerned, were the Best at fucking people’s shit up for the long haul. Point being, Stiles knew more than a little about a lot. He can in fact read the faded writing around the coin and he thinks he knows where it came from but he’s going to need a computer to be sure.

  
Stiles chuckles a little, low and thick with an almost sadness, here they were: and emissary who never was and an emissary who failed his pack both refusing to give ground to the other. Trust isn’t going to be won today, if ever. That’s evident from the odd look his laugh earns from Deaton. Deaton exchanges the coin on the table for a container of mountain ash.

  
“I’m afraid we have no other pieces of new information to offer you though if you wouldn’t mind I would like to ask you to wait around for a while. There are some things I’m sensing off you that’s leaving me somewhat out of my depth. I called someone with more experience in this…field, before you arrived. And if you don’t mind waiting there was one more test of sorts I’d like to try. Don’t worry its noninvasive.” Deaton flicks his eyes expectantly between Stiles and Scott.

  
Stiles tenses, Deaton sounds like he called in reinforcements. Stiles never thought of himself as someone who warranted reinforcements. It felt like, well, it felt like he was the bad guy. The Bad Guy. Stiles hunches down self-consciously and allows Deaton do whatever he wants, in this case whatever he wants is surrounding Stiles in a ring of mountain ash.

  
The air pops in his ears when the ring closes, Scott shuffles uncomfortably and Braeden once again feels the need to grab onto Jackson. Jackson isn’t going to do anything over some mountain ash, they have Braeden there to break it if for some reason Stiles can’t and nothing short of a natural disaster could get in her way. Besides she and Stiles always have an exit strategy even among supposed friends. He doesn’t think Scott is against him, Stiles can’t even process the thought of that, but Deaton creeps him out and Scott trusts the dude implicitly. Stiles hasn’t done anything to win over anyone’s trust lately either, he’s not sure if he should even try. He’s still convinced it’s better for now to have them keep on believing he’s a mere human wielding some legit as hell magic.

  
Making it through an ash barrier isn’t a major issue, the issue is making it appear like it’s not taking any effort or magic. Stiles’ imagination runs rampant with scenarios where they find out the nogitsune lives on, in a way, none of them end well. All he has to do is pretend, Stiles is a fucking great pretender. He throws his hands out pouring as much sarcasm into his movements as he can muster. Over-exaggerating his first step over the line into a ridiculous tip-toe move buying him time to push against the barrier. There is no visual force they can see Stiles manipulating, he can only feel the tug of the ash wanting to keep him inside. All Stiles looks like is an impudent asshole. Once he gets that one foot over the line the rest of his body follows in a stumble that Stiles turns into a spin.

  
Stiles wiggles his fingers, “Taaa daaaa.”

  
Scott’s sigh of relief is audible. However Deaton is confused, at least as confused as Deaton’s face can look. As long as Stiles is human enough no one is going to act rashly. For a werewolf, Scott always held onto the odd obsession of “being human”, as if to be anything else was somehow lesser. Humanity and compassion were not interchangeable in Stiles’ experience. Monsters can have morals and humans can be filled with nothing but vile hate. If it makes things easier Stiles can play up his human bits even if it does feel like a lie _, is_ a lie.

  
“One more thing, Stiles.” Deaton steps in close and shines a pen light in Stiles’ eyes like a proper doctor.

  
Bright white spots blur his vision, Stiles groans, “Seriously?”

  
Spots are still floating around Stiles’ vision when he hears the front door of the vet’s office chime open. The bell on the door reminds him of Duke’s bookstore and a pang of sorrow brushes his heart, he misses the store. Everything here smells so clinical, too much like a hospital and it puts him on edge all the time. That edginess increases, Stiles knows it has nothing to do with Deaton’s pristine workspace and everything to do with the new visitor—Deaton’s expert. If anyone could be called an expert it would be _her_.

  
Noshiko Yukimura enters the exam room with her head held high and her shoulder back. She carries an air of nobility actual royalty only wish they could pull off. Her black dress is pretty but functional, her heels look like they hurt though Stiles thinks all high heels look like they hurt.

  
Deaton bows slightly to her, “Thank you for coming, Yukimura-san.”

  
Her cool expression is fixed upon Stiles even as she inclines her head to the doc, “I would speak to the boy alone.”

  
“Of course.” Deaton agrees without hesitation. He looks to Scott to follow.

  
Frowning deeply Scott ignores him and turns to Stiles, “Are you cool with that?”

  
Hiding his honest surprise at being asked is difficult, Stiles smiles instead and nods, “It’s fine, dude. Thanks. You guys can go. All of you.”

  
Once everyone leaves in a procession of grumbles and glares Noshiko turns on her heel and slaps a small oblong piece of paper on the closed door. Calligraphic Japanese trails down the paper, while Stiles can’t read it per se he does understand the gist of what it’s for: privacy. He probably shouldn’t be so chill about standing toe to toe with the woman who sent a Japanese demon hit squad after him, but that would be hypocritical of him. Stiles lives with Deucalion of all people. Grudges took effort Stiles doesn’t have, she did make him tea once. That’s good enough for Stiles.

  
Stiles straightens ups when she turns back around. Noshiko scrutinizes him head to foot seemingly waiting for Stiles to speak first. He decides to lead with something he figured out a while ago and had been bothering him since.

  
“You knew didn’t you? After the nogitsune and I separated, you said I was more me than nogitsune. Implying,” he takes a deep breath, “a part of me was still nogitsune.”

  
Noshiko nods, “I knew.”

  
“You didn’t say anything!” Stiles accuses, frustrated. He drums his fingers across the surface of the table just to do something with his hands.

  
“At the time, it was not relevant. I was expecting you to die.”

  
“Oh.” Stiles says dully. Noshiko doesn’t pull her punches, he actually appreciates that.

  
“That is no longer the case. Your…self, has shifted since then, and it is my responsibility to help you if you are willing to accept that help.” Noshiko sits primly on Deaton’s swivel chair and regards Stiles with a look that’s both cool and earnest, “There are no recorded cases of anyone surviving a possession of the likes you suffered and yet here you stand. Have you figured out why?”

  
Stiles thinks, chews his lips until he tastes blood. The heady iron taste on his tongue is like a lightbulb, “The possession, the survival rate…it’s like a werewolf bite.” Everyone has been falling over themselves about Stiles’ apparent new-ness, it hadn’t occurred to him until now that maybe they were wrong but somewhat right too.

  
“Yes.” Noshiko’s tone is encouraging.

  
“There are no survivors because you either die or become a fox yourself.”

  
“From chaos and pain, birth.” She’s solemn in her proclamation, “Foxes are among the oldest of supernatural creatures, possession requires a transference of knowledge. Ancient knowledge inherently protects itself. That is also why those who do not successfully take a werewolf’s bite die.”

  
“By changing the host,” Stiles sits down too, this time sitting on the examination table doesn’t feel like the inquisition, “Is that…is that why it looked like Reese in my head?”

  
A pained look flashes over Noshiko’s face and Stiles regrets asking, “Yes. The nogitsune took over his body completely without another life force to contend with. There was no hope for him, even if the burns had not killed him first. Your magic helped you. Your magic is continuing to help you. Your abilities are the only reason you are the exception.”

  
“Doesn’t feel like it.” Stiles honestly replies.

  
“I want you to understand, Stiles,” his name sounds odd coming from her, “what you are-what you are becoming, is not inherently evil. I have been around for a long time, and few creatures are. The nature of a nogitsune is flux, constantly. More often than not that nature is depended upon who summons it. My rage and vengeance brought the nogitsune that possessed you down on our heads. You are not the same being. You always have a choice.”

  
Noshiko stands and approaches her hands hover over Stiles’ sleeves, “May I?”

  
“Go for it bro, uh, m’am.”

  
Noshiko’s lips quirk into a barely-there smirk. She pulls the sleeves up to his elbows to inspect the ink etched into his skin, she doesn’t touch any of the marks but does approve of what she sees.

  
“The spark within you is strong. You are the first to fight the power left behind by a possession or to even have the ability to fight it. But make no mistake no matter what you do, you will inevitably be a fox. What kind of fox remains to be seen.”

  
Stiles’ stomach does a little flip, “You mean I don’t have to be a nogitsune?”

  
“That will be out to you.”

  
“Holy shit dude are dark side/light siding me right now?”

  
“The force analogy is not…inaccurate.” Now Noshiko does smile, keen and sharp. Around her is the barest outline of fox, Stiles blinks and its gone. He grins back.

  
Noshiko pulls his sleeves back down then hands Stiles a slip of paper with a phone number scrawled on it—an offer, one Stiles gladly accepts.

  
“What are you going to tell Deaton?”

  
“Nothing, for the most part.”

  
Stiles makes a face, Noshiko shrugs gracefully, “I owe him nothing and made no promises.”

  
“Mrs. Yukimura?”

  
“Yes, Stiles?”

  
“You’re awesome.”

  
“I know.”

 

 

Scott takes Noshiko’s words as law despite Deaton clearly not buying what she and Stiles are selling, which really is rather smart of him—you can never trust a fox, or two. According to Noshiko Stiles is of his own mind and his magic is of his own power. Stiles suspects Noshiko scares the crap out of Scott, they have uncomfortable tension around them that could be cut with a butter knife. Stiles doesn’t need to know the latest Beacon Hills gossip to know it must be Kira related. Relationship trouble, Stiles shakes his head, barely twenty-four hours in this forsaken town and he’s already knee deep in relationship trouble. He rolls his eyes and strolls out of the clinic uncaring if Scott or Deaton deemed him fit to leave.

  
He’d like to see them try to stop him.

  
Isaac is leaning against the brick wall right outside the door pretending he’s not scoping out Braeden’s van. He reminds Stiles of every picture of James Dean he’s ever seen, and that’s just so unfair, Isaac doesn’t even wear leather jackets anymore.

  
“Unnecessary.” Stiles grumbles. Isaac jumps a little then stares at him, his eyes go wide and hopeful before shuttering into a frown that becomes outright hostile as Jackson appears hot on Stiles’ heels with Braeden right behind.

  
Derisively, Isaac scoffs, and turns his scowl to the original recipients of it. Peter and Duke are in full view sitting in van’s front seats experiencing how the other half lived and oblivious to the scrutiny seemingly in the midst of a conversation. Jackson tilts his head to the side, listening in on their bickering. Whatever it is has him rolling his eyes. Braeden shoves past them all and marches to the van, Stiles hopes they’ve enjoyed the comfortable seats because they were gonna get dragged out by their ears, Braeden can be more territorial than a wolf.

  
Jackson roughly pushes Stiles onward and away from the House of Needles, “Get a move on it, Stilinski, we got shit to do.” Which is code for, ‘Stiles, I am uncomfortable can we please leave?’

  
Jackson-speak took time and patience to master, Stiles feels for Danny and all those years the guy basically had to speak parseltongue. He grins at his own joke but keeps it to himself, he’s bordering on his monthly allotment of snake and lizard jokes. The dog jokes had no allotment because Jackson sucks at every game that’s not a physical sport, although he’s a pretty good bluffer but Stiles and Braeden are a team to be feared and know all his tells. Plus his patience is shit. Obviously, with the pushing and bitchy comments.

  
Stiles isn’t dragging his feet on getting the hell out of there, he’d been hoping for more he guesses, but it’s not surprising Deaton couldn’t shed any light on who fucked with the nemeton. Was Deaton hiding something? Almost certainly. Stiles is no longer in the business of living off scraps of information or pressing Deaton for more until he got a headache. He was just doing his due diligence, he always has his own magic to rely on and he made an ally in Noshiko so no matter what did or didn’t happen Stiles’ time has not been wasted. Other than slip him her number Noshiko also left him with a firm order to go see Kira sometime, she’s been worried. Stiles found that surprising, he hadn’t known her for long yet she’d been instrumental in saving his life. Of course they had talked some during the summer before he went dark—figuratively and maybe literally speaking. Stiles isn’t about to tell Mrs. Yukimura ‘nah’ though because Scott is totally on the money about how intimidating she is. Not a single Hale could hold a candle to her, maybe Victoria Argent could have but she’s dead. Stiles winces and sends a silent apology to Allison’s spirit for the crassness in case ghosts can read minds. God, he hopes not.

  
“Wait up!” Scott calls out to them, he jogs up effortlessly and cuts them off from the van, “You guys are trying to find the people messing with nemeton, so are we, why don’t we work—”

  
“Together?” Stiles finishes.

  
“Exactly!” Scott smiles. No, that doesn’t do it justice, Scott _smiles_. That sunrise/Christmas morning/opening day of a new Marvel movie smile, and Stiles is fucking defenseless.

  
Scott’s enthusiasm dims the longer Stiles is speechless, “Or we could just share information? C’mon man, there’s no reason not to. You’re already here. I get that you don’t want to tell me everything that’s been going on with you. And I’m trying to respect that, I really am. Just…I missed you. What did we do wrong?”

  
“ _What_!?” Stiles incredulous voice is loud enough to make them all cringe, “I—dude, no. What happened, none of what I decided to do was your fault, Scott. Or anyone’s but my own. Okay?”

  
“Some of us do know that actually.” Isaac says less icily than he could have. Scott huffs at him, Isaac shrugs and goes back to his attractive leaning thing.

  
Stiles will blame pure impulse for giving Scott his number once they drive away. Scott didn’t need to give him his, Stiles had never forgotten it—never forgotten Scott.

  
Later in the motel Braeden convinces him with her mouth full of cold Chinese food to sleep first and research in the morning. Stiles doesn’t so much agree as he is basically thrown at the bed and ordered to get in it. After everyone else goes to sleep Stiles is still awake lying on his back, while he wonders why Peter is still with them he also decides to pin remembering Scott’s number on a fluke of memory. Stiles finds lies are easiest to swallow lying in bed staring at the type of nothing that makes you force your eyes away from the darker corners of the room. Lies should be taken quickly, straight from the bottle, so you don’t realize how much of your own bullshit you’ve drank not wallowing in the quiet like Stiles is. He’s not meant to wallow neither should he look into the dark corners too long. The dark is where the truth always hides, where is stares back at you without you seeing the wide open maws oh so close your face.

  
Stiles turns and glares at Jackson’s mouth and strong jaw. Jackson smacks his mouth in his sleep obnoxiously then lets out a weird little snort. He drifts off to those noises, the snuffles and snores of a wolf.

 

  
What feels like a mere hour after falling asleep Stiles blinks awake because of the stinging ache in his feet, he isn’t registering the standing up part yet, or the whole alone in the middle of the woods bit. Mostly, he’s distracted by the scrapes and shallow cuts all over his bare feet. The rush of hurt that radiates from his feet up into his pounding skull has him wavering and reaching out to grab something to stabilize him only to find nothing. He barely keeps himself from toppling over and finally takes in his surroundings.

  
The ground is charred below him, it hits him all at once just where he’s wandered to but there’s something wrong. More wrong. Absent is the oppressive aura of the nemeton choking the air with old magic. The forest beyond the burned land is alive with sound, crickets, an owl, fireflies glow and fade in patches of earth-bound starlight. Stiles is standing in the clearing where the nemeton was last, yet the nemeton no longer resides there.

  
Stiles does a complete 360 degree turn edging panic, he swallows it down and reigns in some control over himself. The instinctual finger count confirms he’s awake; the cuts on his feet are bleeding real blood and the chill prickling his skin is more from the night air than his building fear. Fear is a reasonable response when Stiles’ history of sleepwalking in this town involved subconsciously shoving himself inside a coyote den hoping to die of hypothermia on the off chance it would save his friends and family. He hadn’t wanted to die, not then and not now. Want and willing are two different concepts, explaining that to those he was willing to die for is complicated so he didn’t. No one wanted to deal with that kind of weight, Stiles would spare them if he can.

  
He breathes in until his chest strains then breathes out a weary sigh, he is untraceable, barefoot, and phoneless in the middle of the woods—woods with a body count he might add. The why he’s there can be worked out later, he’d much rather contemplate the range of dog whistles. Like one that could hang around his neck, it would be harder to break than a phone and a thousand times more annoying to the near and dear werewolves in his life. That alone would make it worth it, alerting his friends where he was would just be a nice side-effect. ‘Course it would also alert any other creatures on the preserve of his presence too.

  
Hypothetical decisions were doing a good job of distracting Stiles from the injury done to his feet, the cuts were healing too slowly. Every step made him more tired than the last despite that he picks a direction and leaves the burned too empty land behind. He tries to go the way they came the first time they went looking for the nemeton but the woods are different in the dark, endless and wilder.

  
When the aches and pains get to be too much Stiles stops, closes his eyes, then listens. For an unknown amount of time nothing save the sounds of nature just before dawn take over his senses. Stiles isn’t sure if foxes had superior hearing like wolves, anything is worth a shot and far better than aimlessly wandering around. He lets the sounds wash over him, allows them to become white noise in the background—a trick he wouldn’t have been able to do without the help of his tattooed sigils, until one sound emerges that is actually useful to him. A car, one that’s sounds like it’s going too fast. Due to poor public planning a couple of highways cut through the edges of the preserve, one of them has to be close.  
Stiles grabs onto the sound for as long as he can letting it guide him from afar.

The car eventually fades beyond his hearing, he’s lucky enough, for once, for a couple of more vehicles to roar down the lonely stretch of highway. They rumble by close enough together for Stiles to navigate the woods in a definite direction. Toward the eastern sky pale pinks are winning against the black of the night, Stiles has no concept of how long he’s been out there on his own. Braeden and Jackson are going to kill him. At least he got to see Scott before his inevitable demise, that was nice of the usually shitty universe.

  
A few of the brighter stars are still twinkling above him when Stiles stumbles out onto the asphalt of the road, the rest of the sky had lost the fight to the morning. Stiles collapses in the middle of the road, everything hurts, he fully intends on paying attention to any oncoming traffic so he can flag down a ride and not get run over its just that once he stopped moving getting started again is proving to be difficult. Stiles manages to get his legs up enough to wrap his arms around them, standing up though not so much.

  
He’s admittedly in a daze when a black car zooms down the highway narrowly missing him. The car abruptly brakes the squealing tires jerk Stiles into full awareness, burning rubber smells rancid in the clean woodsy air. Stiles stares on listlessly as the car jerks in reverse just as violently as it stopped. He notes it’s a Camaro, a newer model, it doesn’t occur to him why that’s important until the driver’s door swings open much more slowly than Stiles expects. Angry eyebrows are the first thing registering in Stiles’ exhausted brain, that those eyebrows belong to Derek Hale is secondary. Concern flashes ever so briefly across Derek’s stark countenance then is replaced by a well-known barely contained anger Stiles had never quiet felt the full brunt of before.

  
Derek climbs out all grace and strength, his hands clench into fists at his sides and his nostrils flare scenting the air. There’s no hiding the blood and scabs that litter Stiles' body under the mud he’s caked in, Derek would know even if there were a foot thick steel door between them. In one swooping move Derek’s suddenly face to face with Stiles, if he weren’t so completely drained he would have made an embarrassing noise and fell over as it is Stiles blinks.

  
“ _Stiles_? Stiles!” Derek places his hands on his shoulders and he feels like a furnace, Derek’s eyes go wider but the eyebrows go lower, “Are you okay? What the fuck are you doing out here?”

  
Stiles blinks once more feeling so far out of it he might as well been in the atmosphere then asks after a pregnant pause, “Did I die again?” He thinks it’s a fair question considering where he is and who he’s with and not worthy of the stricken look Derek gives him in response.

  
He gets caught up in the idea that maybe he did die in the woods and now he’s one of those sad road-wandering spirits people make urban legends about but then Stiles is in the air, more accurately he’s being lifted up by Derek like he weighs nothing and really this does nothing to deflate his ‘might be dead’ theory. Derek is solid though the faintest of shudders runs through him, Stiles is reminded how cold he is and it’s like becoming conscious of it makes it twice as worse. He’s definitely not dead, hopefully being dead didn’t feel this bad. Gently, Derek places him in the passenger’s seat, less gently he clicks the seatbelt over Stiles and blasts the car heater.

  
Stiles finally gets his shit together long enough to really start to freak out; it’s the click of the seatbelt that does it. Derek stops his hands from undoing the clasp, “Stop.” He says so Stiles does.

  
“Stay in the fucking car, Stiles.” Derek growls then slams the door shut.

  
Minutes pass before Derek gets in the car too, his face even more blank. Stiles leans back on the headrest, the car smells like Derek—pine trees and laundry detergent. He shuts his eyes and hopes when he opens them again this will have been a dream.

 

tbc

 

 

 


	6. The Moth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is kinda short and mostly serves to get two things moving along: the sterek and the plot. So thank you guys for being so patient with this sporadically updated unbeta’d mess, and always and forever the thank you for the lovely comments and kudos. I’m never sure if I’m supposed to answer comments and I usually don’t unless y’all have questions I can answer. I read them all though, hoard them, press my phone to my face after I’ve read them, we’re definitely at that point in our friendship its cool.
> 
> One more thing! There are a lot of minor ships developing in this story that I hadn’t really planned on but they just kinda grew? Do you guys want those tagged or would you rather just see what happens since y’all are here for the main pair Stiles/Derek anyway? I promise I won’t get too deep into any of them but they are ya know right there, Stiles is seeing them with his own peepers. Idk maybe I’m worrying to much about this…am I worrying too much about this?

 

**Chapter 6**

  
The Moth

 

  
Stiles could hear Derek’s heartbeat pound within the confines of the Camaro, beating far faster than his stony face implied. Too fast to fall asleep to yet Stiles manages. By manages Stiles means he completely passes the fuck out. It wasn’t so much a fight as a gentle fist-bump and an ‘I’ll owe you one’ to the part of his brain that always keeps him up at night. The last thing he remembers before waking up in front of the motel is a big warm hand resting on his ink-covered forearm and black veins traveling from one to the other as all of Stiles’ pain receded to a low hum at the edges of his consciousness.

  
Blinking the sleep from his eyes Stiles sits up straighter, fully awake though that fuzzy sort of sick that comes with not getting enough sleep makes him groan. A quick glance around he sees he’s still in Derek’s car with Derek nowhere to be found. Everything in the car smells faintly of Derek—someplace near continues the thump of a strong heart. All other sounds are muffled under it. Stiles clasps his hands over his ears and breathes, focusing on his own heartbeat instead and pushing Derek’s away. Dread at sharing his headspace with one more element creeps up, as surely as it appears Stiles crushes the feeling ruthlessly and pushes even harder with his will. Hearing returns to him in more normal volumes, the sound of Derek’s heart remains but so softly Stiles can more easily ignore it. For the moment he accepts that’s the best he’s going to get.

  
Blaming Derek for showing up and rescuing him would be pretty shitty, so he doesn’t. The problem isn’t that Derek showed up, that’s what Derek always does eventually, it’s that Stiles is too tired to be fair to people and his senses are too much. All too much. No, he’s not mad at Derek, but he needs to not be surrounded by him.

  
The keys hang invitingly in from the ignition. Derek has a small beaded keychain that spells out he hearted Buenos Aires and that’s just…anyway, technically Stiles can climb over into the driver’s seat and…right, impulse control, that is a thing real boys have.

  
Stiles’ hand is halfway to the car door handle when his motel room door flies open and a three-person mob of angry faces storm out with Jackson at the front purely by being the angriest, Braeden pulls ahead and gets to him first purely by being the best at everything.

  
“Before you get too far along in your freak-out,” She says opening the door and keeping it open with her body, “You can blame Hale senior for the appearance of Hale classic.”

  
Of fucking course he can.

  
Scott’s never broken a real promise to him and really the thought that Scott called Derek never crossed his mind. Peter, on the other hand. Stiles has gotten too comfortable with having the sneaky wolf around. Peter is good at being an outlier while also ingratiating himself into a group. He could have done something worse, that doesn’t negate the shitty thing he’s already done.

  
Jackson tugs Stiles out of the car raining expletives on him, he keeps on moving Stiles along until they’re in their shared room and Stiles is sitting on a bed with a scratchy blanket tossed over his shoulders and something warm pressed into his hands. A pair of batman socks are set next to him by someone while Stiles busies himself tucking his body into the blanket without spilling the contents of the cup. He’s furious but also cold, his pride is going to have to take the hit.

Luckily, his pride is used to taking hits.  
Soon after Stiles is comfortable Peter breezes through the front door too, he pauses at the sight of Stiles bundled up smelling like dried blood and anger. Derek darkens the doorway right behind him his leather jacket adding more bulk to his silhouette and growls impatiently.

  
Stiles starts in immediately filling his voice with venom, “What happened to, ‘Oh Stiles you’re so interesting, I’ll be on your side, duct tape is the first step to any new relationship’!?” The effect is ruined the moment Stiles reaches for the socks to pull on; in spite of this Peter has the audacity to look chastened.

  
“I never said it _that_ way,” Peter directs at an incredibly tense Derek over his shoulder, “But. Yes. Point. However, as much as it pains me to say it,” his face contorts like he’s tasting sour milk, “there’s a greater good involved here.”

  
“Ha.” Stiles deadpans.

  
Properly not dying of hypothermia now Stiles moves to take the blanket off but finds himself in the fixed glowing blue gaze of Jackson, wordlessly he pulls the blanket back on and scowls. Jackson isn’t alone in his heavy gazing. Derek’s stare feels like crosshairs over his chest, Stiles wishes he would pull the trigger already. The motel room is too small for all this baggage. Literally the amount of people crammed inside is probably a fire hazard.

  
Braeden shakes Derek’s need to stare holes through Stiles, “How much has he told you?”

  
The muscles in Derek’s tic, “Nothing. Peter said, more or less, I was needed back in town, we hadn’t realized he left the city yet.”

  
Derek glares at his uncle and crosses his arms, every action screams defensive. He would be far away from this room if he weren’t so stubborn. Derek can huff and flash his eyes at Stiles all he wants but he’s just the same level of thick-headed.

  
“And that was good enough for you?” Braeden asks.

  
“Peter doesn’t bother if it’s not important. I thought it was strange he would leave the city right after—he never said anything about any of this.” He glances over the room skipping Stiles, trading staring for ignoring.

  
Kind of rude, but, hey, at least Derek doesn’t leap off a building to avoid him. Like Stiles had. Very recently. Fuck, this is awkward.

  
“Noah’s still in Seattle. He should be here.”

  
Stiles doesn’t quite frown, “It’s weird you’re on a first name basis with my dad.”

  
“Maybe if you hadn’t run away like a child that wouldn’t be the case.” Derek accuses.

Stiles flinches, once again he doesn’t try to defend himself. Nothing he could do against the truth. He had run away like a child, though his dad would say he was an actual damn child but Stiles doesn’t think that’s been true since his mom died no matter what age he was when he asked Braeden to spirit him away.

  
Jackson is much less accepting of the criticism, “Why the fuck are you even still here? Either of them?” He lifts his chin defiantly at the offending Hales, “They can’t be trusted. Who gives a shit about ‘Hale Land’? We can handle Stilinski’s mess on our own.”

  
An indignant squawk flies from Stiles’ mouth, he can hardly deny it was a mess, no, scratch that. Denial is a precious jewel Stiles clutches close to his chest whenever possible, he can deny anything, if these assholes would just fucking let him. So, fine, it’s a mess. The resurgence of his sleepwalking episodes makes denial near impossible. The jewel crumbles and Stiles internally sighs.

  
“I will endeavor to keep a closer eye on Peter in the future.” Deucalion maybe shouldn’t have said anything at all. Derek’s head turns in a snap, he stares. It’s the ‘I want you dead and very little is keeping me from doing just that’ stare.

  
“Oh, sweetheart, you can always try.” Peter bats his substantial eyelashes. It’s disturbing, Stiles says so. No one seems to be as perturbed as him which is also disturbing.

  
“We can’t keep tabs on another Hale,” Braeden decides in her don’t-fuck-with-me tone, “Thanks for bringing the kid back safe and sound and all but we don’t owe you an explanation on anything and you’re leaving now.”

  
Derek’s eye’s blaze, “Am I?”

  
Stiles doesn’t really agree with Braeden, he believes the whole damn world might owe Derek Hale something. A softer life maybe. Stiles isn’t about to ask Derek for anything either. Not what he wants to ask him, if Stiles gets his way he never will. He’ll never ask anything of Derek, too much had been taken away from him already and because Derek is Derek he’ll bleed for them if they simply ask. Braeden is right about one thing, Derek should leave. That doesn’t mean Stiles wants him to.

  
He wants Derek to stay. He wants Scott to stay.

  
He wants.

  
He wants to become invisible again and he wants to take a shower so hot it scalds him. They are both achievable goals. Disappearing in a crowd had never been Stiles’ strong suit, living in a big city helped. He’d been a boy who had tried his best to be noticed growing up, unlearning those behaviors had been a process carried quickly along by trauma. Stiles lets everyone in the room talk over him without really listening. They talk over him, around him, about him, they talk a lot . While they do he finishes his tea and grabs some clean clothes.

  
Everybody has the same questions, Braeden and Jackson could answer them or not answer them just as well as Stiles could. No one stops him from slinking into the bathroom. Derek’s faint heartbeat fades further under the spray of disappointedly lukewarm water. The hazy memory of being possessed in Derek’s loft surrounded by all the people the nogitsune thought would protect him keeps him company as water sluices off blood and mud down the drain leaving pale unmarred skin in its wake—all healed up.

  
Stiles expects Derek to still be in the room when he forces himself out of the shower, really getting out is the worst part of showering, because that damning faint heartbeat is very much there. His short stint as Scott’s Yoda had been mostly Stiles rehashing techniques to control anxiety and panic attacks for werewolves, he’d never thought he would be applying them to his own enhanced senses. All that matters is they work. Derek’s heartbeat is twice as easy to ignore than twenty minutes ago but he still couldn’t really tell how far he was from him. Derek was not in fact in the room, the room smells like tea and there’s no obvious puddles of blood on the floor, win for team let’s not kill each other while Stiles is away.

  
“Derek’s outside pacing the parking lot.” Peter says scrolling through a phone, he doesn’t bother to look up, “He’ll be getting a room.”

  
Stiles blinks, “Joy.”

  
He’s left the roughly textured bath towel draped across his head, it feels like hiding.

  
Peter starts, “I know you’re angry but—”

  
“Angry that you’re a filthy traitorous liar who lies and betrays? Never.”

  
“We need Derek. It’s not personal, well not for me. This is survival. Survival has no place for being respectful of people’s feelings. Even yours.”

  
“Since when is survival on the line?” Jackson asks warily. They were steadily heading toward more “mess”; they could all sense Peter isn’t quite wrong.

  
Peter’s lips curl, “Isn’t it always?”

  
Braeden pushes Jackson until his ass hits the bed closest to the bathroom then throws a pillow at Peter’s face, “Stop it.” She turns to Stiles, eyes narrowing in impatience and genuine concern, “Kid, you going to fill us in on what the hell happened last night?”

  
“Quid pro quo?” Stiles asks because he’s got blanks of his own to fill in.

  
What happened from Braeden and company’s end was this: the spell that protects Stiles from being tracked also prevented their near and dear werewolf friends from knowing he was gone until Derek showed up on their doorstep glowering up a storm. He had to have been moving supernaturally silent beyond the confines of the spell for them to not hear him whatsoever. Derek was just as freaked out about not being able to sense Stiles in anyway. Like the plug was pulled on the brightest lamp in the room. Peter explained a few key things without really explaining much of anything as he was want to do whenever speaking to his nephew. Despite the trouble the spell causes Stiles is down to keep it, preferring the added layer of anonymity he might need later.

  
In return Stiles tells them about his moonlight field trip to the nemeton, or lack thereof. Weird shit is the norm in the present company and the news is taken in a disquieted stride. He keeps the new and improved hearing to himself.

  
While they ponder the irritating meaning of it all Stiles steals Duke’s fancy laptop. He and everyone else were as awake as they were going to get despite the tea not really cutting it one the caffeine front, they might as well make use of it.

  
“Research?” Jackson groans plaintively. At home Jackson would have video games or TV to keep him company while Stiles would flit around his work space until Jackson admitted his curiosity about Stiles’ work and saunter over like he was the one putting up with Stiles not the other way around.

  
Stiles sighs, “Research.”

  
“Are you certain you don’t want to—”

  
“Duke, if you say ‘rest’, if anyone says ‘rest’ to me I will scream my friggin’ lungs out.”

  
Braeden squints at him, “Chill.”

  
“I am the chillest! You!” Stiles jabs a finger at Peter, “Do something useful!”

  
Something useful turns out to be helping Deucalion retrieve the scorched ritual crystals and do some pre-spell prep to give Stiles a leg up later should he need it, which was, fine, pretty useful. Blessed Braeden she of illegal fully automatic weaponry and dangerously caffeinated substances did them all solid and went on another coffee run.

  
“Next time,” she says shooting Jackson a deadly glare “, is someone else’s turn.”

  
Jackson nods instantly and quickly settles next to Stiles on the nest he’s made on the bed out of everyone’s pillows bringing a notebook and a motel pen with him. On principal Jackson refuses to do any heavy lifting when it comes to sorting through massive amounts of data however he’s not opposed to note taking and helping Stiles keep track of the important bits that could sometimes be lost in the wake of the way Stile’s mind can go a mile a minute. He’s getting pretty proficient at translating Stiles’ babble into hard facts worth remembering. Occasionally the two are a good team, occasionally they could admit it.

  
An aura of quiet rightness grows between them all, if Stiles closed his eyes he could be back in his apartment working on the newest job from Braeden. Derek’s shadow passing over the windows ruined the effect. He’s been lurking outside long enough that Jackson has taken to sarcastically narrating his movements. Stiles elbows him in the side to make him stop. Jackson doesn’t. Braeden eyes Stiles critically but she says nothing. This too, feels like old times, Derek Hale is lurking outside his window probably looking serial killer-ry and there’s a Beacon Hills mystery to solve. Friends became enemies, enemies became family, and people who should be dead roamed around like it was no big deal. The more things changed the more they stayed the same. Derek is gone soon after Jackson starts the running commentary, to his own room maybe, close if his faint heartbeat is any indication. The knowing look Braeden’s been casting his way all morning doesn’t wane with Derek’s absence. He brushes off the implications of that look then gets down to business humming his favorite Mulan songs as he goes.

  
Not twenty minutes in Stiles already has to mutter an anti-lag charm under his breath, he’s got close to thirty tabs open. The laptop, fancy as it may be, is having a hard time keeping up with a fixated Stiles Stilinski. Many a device met an untimely demise due to the him, he was a terror in the computer repair community, probably, and that was before magic was in the picture. He tries not to lose his temper, it’s the only laptop and Stiles doesn’t want to risk the wrath of the Demon Wolf.

  
Said Demon Wolf is busy with Peter, still rifling through spellwork supplies and taking notes of their own. The two make a good team too and that’s just…something. Definitely something. Stiles hasn’t decided what yet. Duke is wearing a cableknit sweater and his hair is fresh from bed fluffy, Peter seems to notice. Stiles smirked to himself his irritation gone. Demon Wolf, sure.

  
“I almost miss the kid who would spazz out for hours when some new unsettling shit happened to him.” Braeden says wistfully. She sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed with her gun cleaning kit.

  
“Don’t worry I’m still freaking out, I just internalize all that shit now. Like a healthy adult.”

  
Braeden snorts and starts taking apart her sidearm, “I hope you’re not using me as an example.”

  
“Ha. You wish, you don’t internalize you punch, or shoot. Now, Duke, that’s some nuclear grade internalization skills.”

  
Deucalion lifts his head from a big jar of black salt Stiles had made himself and thus probably might be a little bit toxic, he gives Stiles a wry grin, “That does not sound very complimentary.”

  
Stiles’ laugh jostles the laptop’s precarious position on a pillow in his lap and Jackson, “Oh, but it was, it _was_!”

  
Beside Duke where they are making full use of the tiny table by the window Peter smiles that smile he does whenever Stiles says something he agrees with. Stiles jerks Jackson’s pen away from him and throws it Peter’s chest. Immediately he starts looking around for other stuff to throw. Every pen in the world should be thrown at that asshole.

  
Fingers rudely snap in front of his eyes, when that fails to gain his full attention Braeden gets all the way up to turn his head back around to the laptop, “Ignore him, work.”

  
Softly Jackson whines, “My pen.”

  
“People used to drag me away from shit like this,” Stiles mutters.

  
Braeden raises an unsympathetic eyebrow, “Tragic.”

  
The pen gets returned to Jackson via a bemused Deucalion.

  
Working quietly is not one of the skills Stiles acquired in the last couple of years, it doesn’t much matter when no one else in the motel can sit idle. Duke and Peter parry magical queries at him while he taps, reads, taps, reads and mumbles things of interest to Jackson. It’s Duke who asks him if he had any grail well water left. Water is great at disrupting magical energies when it was running, standing still in containers water can also be used to trace other lines of energy to their source. Poetic, if you knew what you were doing. Stiles knew…stuff…sometimes.

  
There’s no well water left but the idea of water sticks. Stiles had the idea of wells when he saw the Greek coin. Historically wells were associated with places “Other”, coins got thrown in all the time for a variety of magical reasons. The nemeton is a well in a sense, a holding place of power where if one made the right offering one can gain power. Not every offering is accepted every time, many nemeton groves were less picky about what gets poured on their roots or hung bloody on their branches. The town’s nemeton is so twisted up in dark magic it isn’t going to give it up for anything less than full-on human sacrifice. Thanks, Mrs. Blake.

  
Death, here Stiles’ line of thinking takes a turn. His research goes from wells to death rituals, water, and Greek coins. Those three key words narrow down the possibilities to a glittering few. One possibility triggers a strange sense of uncanny knowing in him, perhaps it’s from the nogitsune’s memories or maybe it’s just his intuition but once he says the words out loud they ring with truth.

  
“Charon’s obol.” Stiles’ voice is a murmur however the two older wolves catch it. They stop and turn to look at him with predator gazes.

  
Peter leans in to Duke, “The coin they found was Greek.”

  
“And extremely old.” Duke says.

  
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Asks Jackson voicing the question for Braeden too, she’s moved on from cleaning her Dessert Eagle to the small caliber pistol she keeps in her boot. Her attention is split from wiping gun oil down the stubby barrel and everyone else.

  
“Stiles thinks,” Peter is ever ready to tell a story, “the coin used as a foci at the nemeton was originally one placed in the mouth of the dead to pay their passage across the River Styx into the underworld.”

  
Jackson’s nose crinkles as he writes down the new info, “Gross.”

  
“All death magic is gross, dude, and that’s what this is. I think. Or was supposed to be. Maybe. Until something went wrong.” Stiles says, misery gives his voice a sighing quality. He narrows the open tabs down on the computer to the most relevant information. Except for the one that is basically a retelling of Zeus’ top ten douche moments because that’s quality reading material right there.

  
“Death magic?” Braeden begins to take out all her hidden knives and reaches for the sharpening stone kept in her gun kit for convenience, she looks nonplussed, “ But there were no bodies at the blast zone.”

  
“If the fire was hot enough to turn whole trees to ash it could have burned up bodies without leaving much of a trace. And we couldn’t smell the difference among the ashes.” Jackson points out.

  
Stiles gives him a look, “You’re sexy when you say smart shit.”

  
A weird thud hits the other side of the motel wall somewhere and Peter hides a smile beneath a fake as hell cough. Jackson pushes Stiles’ face away making him nearly topple over, the laptop sways on his lap perilously.

  
“Also when dealing with artifacts strongly connected to death, magically imbued, fresh kills may not be necessary.” Duke says.

  
Stiles repeats his sentiments, “Sexy all around today.”

  
Their sentences are being punctuated by Braeden’s knives scraping along stone in even musical strokes. The sound is a skin-prickling sort of soothing. Braeden doesn’t apply the wolf’s bane oil she and Stiles concocted one dreary jobless evening not long ago just to see if it would work. Neither have had a chance to test it yet however she still used the oil to keep her blades healthy anyway in case it did work—being prepared for bullshit is half the battle. Wolf’s bane in oil might not have any aerial effects on their wolves but it seems stupid to risk it. Skipping one simple step in her routine is bound to make Braeden instantly restless—another small important way she and Stiles were alike. They both needed something to do. She is a woman of action and physicality, plenty smart in her own right though it’s Stiles who has the brain that’s always working on something. Usually as long as he’s doing something it doesn’t matter. Stiles finds these days, as with most things, he can go both ways.

  
These people are lucky Stiles only cracked half the jokes that ran through his head, so lucky. He’s content to be amused in the middle of the chaos by himself, bi-himself, Stiles bites the inside of his cheek.

  
Jackson eyes his notebook full of neatly printed notes, “Death magic.”

  
“If you want to turn tail, I wouldn’t blame you. Just wanna put that out there.” Stiles says.

  
The other boy is a heater on his side, the angry expression he shoots at Stiles is twice as hot.

  
Braeden shakes her head, “The way you keep trying to kick us out, we’re gonna start thinking you don’t want us around. Whittemore already has a complex, stop adding to it.”

  
“I do not have a complex.”

  
“Sure you don’t.”

  
“As much as I love the not-so-witty banter—fills me with the nostalgic longing for the grave, truly, I have something here you all may be interested in.” Peter waves the phone Stiles still hasn’t figured out when he got a chance to buy, “There’s an exhibit coming to the Northern California Museum of Art and History, The Foundations of Western Civilization. Greek and Roman respectively, including a subsection on the history of currency. What a coincidence.”

  
Peter is a snake. The most useful snake Stiles has ever met. The museum is an hour and half drive from town and there were no such thing as coincidences. With whatever ritual at the nemeton having failed their shady evil-doers were going to need new everything after tweaking whatever went wrong. Getting another foci would be a priority.

  
A slow furl of giddy anticipation bloomed in Stiles’ chest unbidden and dark. Noshiko said he didn’t have to be a nogitsune but the universe hands him shit like this and, well, it is really hard keeping the not-so-nice smile off his face. He fails miserably.

  
“Dude,” Stiles says, “ _dudes_ , are we gonna heist it up?!”

  
Reasonably Duke points out, “It would be difficult for our unseen enemies to use a resource if we were to simply get there first.”

  
“Buying something like a specific Greek coin definitely used the way you say would be difficult. Fakes probably flood the market. If it were me I’d hit the museums first.” Braeden says. She would know. Braeden didn’t steal things, she retrieved already stolen stuff. There’s a difference.

  
“Oh my God.” Stiles vibrates with more energy than he’s had in, fuck, weeks.

  
“Hm. Well, of course we’re going to have to reestablish some connections here first. To do this right. Say, in the next two days?” Peter gives Duke his phone giving him a better look at the screen.  
“The exhibit is in four.”

  
Braeden nods, her brow crinkles in thought, “And ‘they’ aren’t going to wait around.”

  
Stiles has to shake off the barest hint of black wisps curling dangerous trails around his fingers. A hint of burn sizzles across his tattoos, it’s enough of a check to make Stiles get to his feet. He sets the computer away from him lest it suffer the same fate of Stiles’ long line of cellphones.

  
Excitement isn’t what’s sparked up his powers, it’s a particular this brand of trouble. Being threatened normally did the trick along with his own intention, and apparently now plans to commit larceny. Run of the mill coins from roughly the same era as that theirs would probably be from went for a pretty penny, yep, totally larceny. Oh, God, his dad is going to kill him.

  
“In short,” Braeden goes back to his initial question, “We are going to heist it up.”

  
She refuses to high-fives him, Stiles high-fives himself instead his enthusiasm is an unquenchable flame.

  
Heisting it up turns out to be less awesome than Stiles envisioned, as well as more traumatic for Jackson. Peter’s first suggestion is to talk to Danny, he’s confident Danny will be down for illegal activities. Way too confident for Jackson’s tastes who is of course against anything that puts his old best friend in anyone’s crosshairs. Stiles has to agree with Peter, Danny’s skills will come in handy. First of all by getting into the museum’s computers to see if their exhibit will have what they’re looking for without having to case the place. They don’t want to put any faces on cameras sooner than they need to. Stiles’ agreeableness earns him nothing as Peter points out Derek will be useful as well. He also points out not including him would be futile since Derek’s been listening to their entire conversation.  
Peter tilts his head, listening to a likely seething Derek pissed at being called out no doubt going by the smug smirk on Peter’s face.

  
“Oh, get over it.” Peter says to the wall on the left of the front door. It’s hardly the weirdest thing Stiles has witnessed the wolf do, “Fine. But we’re using the loft.”

  
“Uh, shouldn’t you ask Stilinski?” Jackson says, he hears what Stiles and Braeden can’t.

  
No matter what is being said they should absolutely ask Stilinski. He tries in vain to expand his own hearing again, only the volume of Derek’s heartbeat increases. The rest of his senses are no help, maybe not so Yoda after all.

  
Peter raises and imperious finger meaning to shush Jackson. Jackson rises from the bed ready to throttle those deserving of throttling, he gets pretty close to it—Stiles and Braeden weren’t going to stop him, Duke ruins it by being all reasonable and shit. He gently pushes Jackson back then pats his shoulder, Duke’s eyes flash red at Peter. Frowning Stiles catches himself thinking more bloodthirsty thoughts than the situation warrants. The burning of his tattoos hasn’t stopped.

  
Stiles runs his thumbs over his fingertips, not to ensure his realty is valid but rather to calm himself down. Then he moves on to counting the flowers on the bedspread. Forty-two. The answer to life, the universe, and everything. Douglas Adams was his mom’s favorite author, Stiles got the majority of his nerdiness from her. A good memory, one of the treasured ones, trickles warm down his limbs relaxing him.

  
He had to admit the loft sounds…not bad. Someplace he knew, and a lot more roomy. The motel room is getting claustrophobic. Stiles isn’t used to living out of this many people’s pockets. Space is important, he grew up with plenty of it. His family house was bought for three people with plans in the future for maybe one more. The house ended up with only two, one was always working the other found himself running around at night with real-life mythological creatures. Then Stiles lived in his own apartment in a building shared with one other person. He missed his house. He missed his apartment more even with the flaking paint on the walls but those walls had crown molding. According to HGTV, and thanks to his post Beacon Hills depression, crown moldings seem to be important.

  
Stiles’ voice is rougher than he likes, “Its fine, whatever ‘it’ is. We can go to the loft.” Saying ‘the’ loft rather than ‘Derek’s’ loft is intentional.

  
“Good,” Peter chirps, pleased, “Everyone with something to offer will meet us there. Derek will take care of it.”

  
Derek’s heart beat triples in anger, who needed words?

  
“Everyone with something to offer?” Braeden’s eyebrows arch sharply, almost as sharp as the final gleaming knife in her hands.

  
“No one deserving of _that_.” Peter nods at the knife, “Just friends, in one form or another. The Mahealani boy of course.”

  
Poking things he shouldn’t is one of Stiles’ notorious pastimes, Peter likes to poke things too. The older wolf is lucky Jackson is more bark than bite, he might not be as strong speaking beta to beta but Jackson had a room full of back up. Jackson glares at Peter with a ferocity that could wilt the souls of lesser beings. Unfortunately Peter’s soul is already so wilted and shriveled the glare has zero effect.

  
Stiles shakes his head, “Drama queen.” He’s not sure which one he means. Both, probably.

  
A short list forms in Stiles’ head, a who’s who among the Beacon Hills citizens who would agree to work with their brand of shadiness and who have Peter-approved skill sets. The horror. They weren’t in a position to turn down help anymore, not when they had no idea who the other team was or how they were going to go about getting their next foci.

  
The sun is coming in force through the dingy motel window blinds, laser accurate stripes of yellow light over an already suspiciously stained floor. The ends taper off into sharp spikes stretching toward them. Stiles sighs, even sunlight in this town is creepy. Setting is everything he guesses. Seattle has dark shadows, deep as hell dark shadows, but the aliveness of the city balanced the darkness there. Beacon Hills has no balance, the very air feels like a slow death—more insidious than the supernatural forces elsewhere. The nemeton is wrong already, it’s hard to imagine how worse it could get but Stiles can sense they are standing right before the worse, right ahead of the storm. He can smell the lightning.

  
“Oh, and Derek has a stipulation: you ride with him.” Peter says to Stiles snapping him out of his daze into an unpleasant reality.

  
Ride with means talk, like Talk™, the kind of talking neither Stiles nor Derek were really equipped for. Stiles stares longingly at the bed. Too bad he has too much energy to burn and evil to stop.

  
“Sure, fine, whatever.” Stiles agrees as breezily as he can. He convinces no one.

  
“We’re keeping the rooms.” Braeden says. They all sans Peter agree. Derek would likely put them up, but, uh, nope. “Also I ordered pizzas while Petey here enjoyed the sound of his own voice.”

  
Peter sneers, “You people are obsessed with food.”

  
The other four all eerily stare back at him radiating judgement and in one singular case, disappointment. Peter has the good sense to appear nervous.

  
Gravely Stiles pronounces, “For shame.”

  
“Honestly, we have four days to plan and pull off a literal heist. And you’re all going to what? Waste time eating pizza?”

  
“Yes.” All four answer.

  
And they did.

 

  
_tbc_

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who was the moth? Derek circling Stiles? Stiles circling his own dark powers? The whole gang as they near our faceless enemies? Who knows, not the writer


	7. Come As You Are

**Chapter 7**

  
Come As You Are

 

Stiles saw the Ocean’s Eleven remake close to a hundred times. His crush on Matt Damon is a long burning torch yet to be extinguished. Stilinski crushes are forces not to be trifled with—that’s written somewhere on a cave wall. The point is, he’s got a very specific idea of how heists are supposed to go down. Small time heists shouldn’t be that different. Waiting at the drive-through while Derek Hale buys him curly fries is not fitting in with any of those expectations.

  
Derek grips his steering wheel tightly enough for Stiles to worry about the structural integrity of the wheel, his impressive knuckles go a painful white before releasing entirely. He’s very polite to the brightly dressed fast food girl at the window as they exchange money for deep fried goodness.

  
Stiles’ magically infused metabolism burned through the pizza pretty damned fast hours ago, the curly fries are not unwelcome. Being alone with the heavy miasma of Derek’s Derek-ness, however, is. The double order of fries and fistful of ketchup are placed gingerly in his lap. Derek doesn’t look at him while he does it, forcing the silence between them to stretch out longer and growing more awkward.

  
Derek pulls the Camaro into a vacant parking spot facing the road. He flicks his eyes to Stiles then back to the windshield, “Do you not like those anymore?”

  
Immediately Stiles hugs the warm paper bag to his chest, “Yes! No! I mean,” he puffs out his cheeks then takes a breath, “I like them still. Thank you.”

  
All this time working with two of the biggest of the bad asses—useless, Derek goes and does one tiny nice thing for him and Stiles devolves into a bumbling idiot. He can turn people into The Mummy rejects, this is just embarrassing. Stiles chalks it up to nerves. Crime had been expected, or yelling, definitely glares no matter what. Not whatever the hell _this_ was.

  
Desperate to do anything else with his mouth other than talking Stiles devours a handful of fries, pretty good under the circumstances, and regrets not leaving with his own people. Jackson would have pushed the issue if Stiles had let him, but Braeden had merely smiled her enigmatic knowing smile content Stiles would be A-okay. That talk she had with the sour wolf must have been productive, could be a good thing, probably most certainly isn’t.

  
As if he were waiting for Stiles’ mouth to be full Derek says, “You’re different—”

  
Around deep fried potato Stiles tries to deny deny deny but stops half way through because dignity.

  
“You aren’t going to tell me how yet. That’s fine. I’m good at waiting.”

  
Stiles swallows and thanks all the names of every Pagan god he knows he didn’t choke because his throat is suddenly parched.

  
“But I shouldn’t have to. I… we weren’t,” Derek’s jaw clenches, he ducks his head, “I’m probably not the one you’re going to want to talk to.”

  
This whole side excursion while everyone else headed to the loft is Derek not so much drawing lines in the sand as it is him laying out his expectations, or his lack thereof. Stiles forgets sometimes Derek is no longer an alpha. He talks like one, steel in his voice, control in his movements, that surety that his words are being heeded, maybe more now than when he was actually an alpha. This conversation is very…alpha.

  
Stiles never did well with authority figures, the ultimate authority figure being his dad who pretty much let him get away with a whole bunch of shit did little to nip his ‘damn the man’ mentality. To be fair his dad also had a bit of that mentality, sheriff or not. The idea of an alpha didn’t sit well with him, more now than ever. The idea that somebody could just command someone else to do something, just by using their voice, is actually genuinely awful to him. He can’t deny a certain amount of sense is made when werewolves are added to the mix with their uncontrollable outburst and brand new instincts going awry at the most inconvenient of times. Free will, though dude, Stile would never make that trade willingly. No matter what creeptastic insinuations Peter likes to make Stiles knows he’d never make a very good werewolf, not as a beta and definitely not as an alpha. When Derek was an alpha he was a jerk but he was a jerk trying to protect people, Stiles will give him that. He’s still trying to protect people.

  
“That’s not, um, how imagined this was going to go. You seemed pretty pissed before.”

  
“I’m fucking furious.” Derek rumbles short of an inhuman growl.

  
Stiles sucks in his bottom lip between his teeth and nods.

  
Derek blinks, physically reeling himself back a couple of inches and starts the car again, “Finish your fries, Stiles.”

  
For all his talk of fury Derek sounds less mad and more defeated. Every part of Stiles can agree that’s infinitely worse. The fries get eaten but they don’t taste as good as he remembers. The blame likely lies in the looming conversations that he’s role-playing in his head. There’s a loft full of people waiting for them. Coupled with Derek’s words Stiles is skating a nervous breakdown. He clamps down on all those swirling emotions tight, his mental walls are made of steel and brick, bone and ice. The tiny flame of warmth he gets from Derek caring this much about him goes cold under the force. Coolness settles over him, he fidgets less and looks more relaxed. The very strength of his mental walls brings back the concern that the nemeton, or something/someone else has been getting in. Stiles frowns out the window but otherwise stays in that state of frosty calm even as Derek brings the Camaro in next to Braeden’s van in front of his building.

  
The place hasn’t lost any of its industrial apocalyptic chic curb appeal. A few cars Stiles doesn’t recognize are close by too. He doesn’t like having left Braeden, Jackson, and Duke to face a bunch of unknowns. They can take care of themselves better than Stiles can, except for Jackson, and Derek’s is not enemy territory. But he can’t shake the feeling of something being wrong with them.

  
Stiles glances up the face of the building, Derek catches the look while he leads him up the exterior stairs, “Don’t jump off of this one.”

  
Stiles chokes on a laugh he’s not sure is appropriate or not, that was not how he was expecting that incident to be brought up. He does what he does best, Stiles rolls with it, “Peter’s up there, so no promises.”

  
Derek huffs, a vague fleeting smile graces his lips, Stiles has to smother his own victorious grin and relaxes in a way that has nothing to do with forced mental barriers.

They enter the building and finish the rest of the stairs on the interior, Stiles complains about the lack of an elevator the whole way up. Cruel is what it is, somebody that spends as much time leaning over dusty books as much as he does shouldn’t have to climb this many stairs. Fucking werewolves.

  
All of his alleviated anxiety comes crashing back in the second Derek slides the metal door to his loft open.

  
Duke is bleeding, Peter is holding a towel against the deep gashes across his chest, Braeden has a gun trained on Cora whose claws drip perfectly round red little droplets onto the wood floors. Danny has an arm hooked around Jackson’s neck loosely as a preventive measure, both of their sights are locked on Cora, Duke, and Braeden. The furthest from the commotion are Lydia and Kira. Lydia, unconcerned and well-put together, is making a sandwich. Next to her Kira is looking like all the nerves Stiles refuses to let himself show. Her wide eyes flick from person to person before landing on Stiles in shock.

  
A blazing aura flares around her, Stiles feels something in him rise up in response. Kira’s shock doubles and then all at once she just looks relieved. She gives him an awkward little wave made even more so by the death threats Cora starts spewing and the, uh, blood everywhere.

  
“Oh my god,” Stiles groans, weakly he returns Kira’s greeting. “Leave you guys alone for ten minutes and its Mortal Kombat.”

  
“What the _fuck_ , Derek!” Cora roars.

  
Braeden tilts her head in their direction but she doesn’t turn away from the threat, “Nice of you to show up. How was your date?”

  
Stiles splutters, “It was not!”

  
Braeden hums, her finger moves from hovering right in front of the trigger to the trigger guard of her gun. Peter and Cora track the movement.

  
“Calm down.” Derek orders his little sister. He’s obviously not happy about the gun being pointed at her, he’s not as freaked as maybe someone else would be at least not on the outside. Too much time dealing with trigger happy hunters probably.

  
Now Stiles never had any siblings but—

  
“Fuck you!” Cora snarls. Whoop. There it is. At least her ire fully shifts to her brother, “How can you stand there with this—this monster in your home!? Do you not remember what happened the last time he was here. What about Kali and the twins? They were under his orders!”

  
“Your brother and your alpha both let Deucalion go in the first place, aren’t second chances grand? Let’s not get on our high horses about it now.” Peter says. He takes the towel away and eyes the freshly knitted back together skin.

  
Peter makes a good point, Derek goes to stand by his sister anyway. She allows him to press their shoulders together. Stiles orbits Braeden, it looks a whole lot like taking sides.

  
“Besides,” Lydia’s voice is clear as a bell. Her voice for some reason is more a bucket of cold water than the others, whenever he fucked something up it was always her voice in his head telling him to do better, “there are plenty of monsters already here, if murder is the only qualifier. We have room for one more.” Lydia flips her strawberry blonde curls over her shoulder, dismissive.

  
“Don’t play devil’s advocate just because you’re pissed at me.” Cora grouses. Contrary to her fighting words her claws retract along with her teeth and glowing eyes.

  
Lydia snorts delicately, “Not everything is about you, or you and me. If Deucalion is the price we have to pay to have Stiles back it’s worth it.”

  
For a final time Cora snarls, more like her uncle than her brother, then turns away angrily throwing herself into a nearby loveseat. Braeden holsters her weapon and the collection of glowing eyes in the room fade.

  
“Stiles? Are you just going to stand there?” Lydia asks, she walks out from behind the kitchen counter and tilts her hands palms up expecting…something, oh!

  
Oh.

  
Stiles wastes no time crossing the short distance to crush her and her expensive looking flimsy autumn-colored dress in a hug that lifts her off her feet. A dam breaks and suddenly he’s giving hugs to Kira and Danny too, he nods at Cora who looks him up and down then nods stiffly back not ready to let go of her anger.

  
“Not that seeing everyone isn’t great,” Danny says with a dimpled smile, “but why are we here exactly?”

  
“Why do varied people gather at any other time? Crime, of course.”

  
“Yeah, Peter, that’s the only reason people come together.” Stiles pulls off his jacket that’s getting too warm and lays it over the sofa, “But, I mean, yeah. Crime is definitely happening here so if you’re not down with that then now is the time to grab that plausible deniability.”

  
No one says anything, only Kira looks particularly nervous but she doesn’t back down or once look toward the way out. Cora’s anger and curiosity don’t even out, her efforts to appear relaxed and uncaring make the fact she’s not all the more clear, however like Kira she stays. Likely to ensure her big brother doesn’t get impaled again, fair. Stiles would never let anything happen to Derek while he could help it, it’s not like Cora knows that or him that well for all that matter. They might have been friends if he hadn’t left, she’s the type of girl Stiles would’ve gladly cut himself on. He grins at her then at everyone else.

  
“Awesome,” Stiles tilts his head to Peter, “DJ take it away.”

  
Peter lays it all out in a surprisingly simple manner, by Peter standards. The fucked up nemeton bullshit may be related to some undisclosed Stiles bullshit, shadowy persons of evil, the home team taking steps to stop them, blah blah blah. Maybe Peter isn’t quite that blasé however Stiles has a patience problem and tends to have none when bringing others up to speed which is why he’s letting Peter work on his mad orator skills. Peter gets to the actual crime bits and it sounds like a natural progression of events, he’s that good at smooth talking. Someone may be trying to kill us so of course we have to steal this centuries old artefact from a museum.

  
Theoretically a museum isn’t that hard to hit, the security is minimal for lesser known institutions. A dead of night run-by would do it. The run isn’t why they’ve got the extra muscle, they don’t know who or what they might run in to. Stiles approves of the caution. Werewolves will provide the muscle and be effective lookouts able to signal long distance with howls if phones fail, Braeden will handle their reconnaissance needs, Danny’s on digitally locating what they’re looking for as well as handle the alarms. Kira and Lydia would be going in with Stiles during the day. Stiles is the only one as far as they know who can identify the magical energies around the coin to know which one to swipe. It would be odd for him to go in alone so they’ll pose a students, Lydia’s been pretending to be someone else most of her life and if they need a distraction Kira can cause a little chaos of her own, hopefully less destruction then Stiles’ version. Lydia is also a genius and Kira is pretty badass with a sword. Like he said, they don’t know what could happen or who could show up.

  
It’s a decent plan with plenty of holes that would need fixing on site. The first hole, more of an assumption really, needs to be patched sooner rather than later.

  
Everyone has gravitated to sitting somewhere while Peter talked except Peter who is standing where all could see him and Braeden who has taken a post by the door. Lydia hops off a barstool and crosses her arms, Stiles knows that posture, “That’s all fine and good, smart even, however you all show up out of nowhere and ask for our help? I’m glad you’re here, Stiles, I really am. But you’re asking us to trust you without giving us a real reason.” Her eyes are apologetic, everything else about her? Iron.

  
Stiles points at Derek, “He trusts us. Kind of.”

  
“Pshaw, hardly an unbiased party.” Lydia says.

  
The tips of Derek’s ears go slightly pink, otherwise he’s his scowly self and doesn’t feel the need to defend his decisions or correct Stiles for assuming.

  
“You know, I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty of times by now, you’ve changed a lot.” Lydia breaks the silence her doubts have created, “I’m not so narrow-minded to think that’s a bad thing. We’ve all changed. Everything has. I want to trust you, Stiles, I’ve missed you—I could shove my heel up your ass for leaving the way you did. Don’t think I’m letting that go but I get that too. What I want is a little honesty. I think I can ask that from you don’t you?” She’d come to stand right in front of him, taking his hands in hers. She’s a study in height being meaningless if you had the confidence and fury to back it up. Look at Napoleon. Napoleon ain’t got shit on Lydia Martin.

  
Lydia pushes were Derek is willing to wait, at the very least he can put them on the same knowledge level. All of them. These were the Peter approved ones after all, they could keep secrets just because they were asked. Secrets sometimes really were meant to protect people, that’s what Stiles is trying to do in the long run and so what if he’s on his own list of people to protect? That’s just self-care, it’s all the rage with the kids these days.

  
Stiles takes off his hoodie and holds out his arms then he takes off his plain white t-shirt. Not really what his thirteen year old self imagined taking his shirt off for Lydia Martin would be like, nor what his seventeen year old self imagined taking off his shirt around Derek Hale would be like.

  
Lydia’s eyes go wide at the tattoos.

  
Danny gasps softly, “Holy shit.”

  
Stiles isn’t admitting to anything really, he is betting on Lydia being smart enough to find out what some of his markings mean and that not nothing, “Is this enough?”

  
She purses her lips, “For now. Good to see you finally grew into those shoulders.”

  
Stiles jerks his shirt back on and valiantly does not hide his tomato red face. He’s not comfortable enough to go without his hoodie for multiple reasons so that gets pulled on again too. Cora is glaring at them, that appears to be her default expression for the day but Stiles can see there’s something else to it. He shrugs her off as best as anyone can shrug off a Hale. She dismisses him more easily.

  
Lydia’s good enough is good enough for everyone else too. Danny sets up his computer on the long table Derek keeps by the massive windows in the fore of the loft without anyone’s urging. All the dude needs to get to work is a half decent laptop and his own two hands. Jackson hovers like a cumbersome shadow before a quick and furious expression passes over his face. He makes a physical effort to tamp down on whatever it was when he sees Stiles Watching, capital W.

  
Once Stiles needed Watching too, he’s got the tattoos pulling most of the weight now. Temper flares for the both of them lead down bad roads, no, more like shitty ladders that they fell off and took others down with them. So they got used to watching for smoke before the fires started and being there for the other when need be. Jackson grabs a bar stool next to Kira and flops down on it. Kira offers a small smile, Jackson nods back. Stiles wants to walk over and fluff the artful spikes of his gelled hair, good boy.

  
Danny settling down to put to action all of their big talk gets everyone else into the same constructive zone. Peter sends links about Charon’s obol along with some other useful mythological info and stuff on their poor little unsuspecting museum about to get burgled. Lydia’s unhappy the smarmy wolf has her number especially since she doesn’t remember ever giving him her number. A new phone is in her future, she doesn’t say so but Stiles knows—he’ll be doing the same for the same reason. The other Hales remain watchful and uncomfortably quiet, Jackson is mostly silent too though his is a much more forceful kind of silence that seethes malcontent, while they all volley a mythology discussion around the room.

  
More interested in hacking than the Greek mythology Kira pulls her stool across the floor to ogle over Danny’s shoulder, he doesn’t mind in the slightest. She keeps glancing at Stiles though like she has something to say or wants a conversation but not now, not so public. There is something sharp in her features, calculating now that she has a handle on what’s going on, much more like her mother than her kindly disposition father. Stiles doesn’t feel targeted by her there was a reason Noshiko wanted them to speak, Kira gets the awful and strange position of the only person in town Stiles isn’t going to avoid having a long conversation with. Somehow she reads those intentions on his face and returns to watching Danny’s technical wizardry.

  
Maybe it’s a fox thing.

  
Stiles doesn’t get an opportunity to ponder it because Lydia is demanding answers about the mechanics of magic more specific than Stiles can explain coherently. For him most magic is instinct and following the spell, more like cooking than what Hollywood lead people to believe. He clarifies this in a halting meandering way that Lydia absorbs nonetheless as she does with all information like she’s saving ammunition for a shoot out later. Lydia’s considering gaze skitters by Cora and stops there. The other girl is watching Braeden predatorily while swinging her leg over the edge of the loveseat back and forth.

  
“Hey,” Cora says dragging those wolf eyes up and down Braeden’s figure, “you got a girlfriend?”

  
Braeden arches a brow and delivers a deadpan, “No.”  
“Want one?”

  
Lydia grits her teeth but let it all go in a huff, “You are ridiculous.”

  
“What, when you do it its fine?” Cora sneers, she looks more like she’s going through the motions of the argument for the principal of the thing.

  
“I was giving him a passing compliment, honestly is insecurity a dominant family trait?”

  
Stiles wants to press himself against a wall. Peter and Derek’s brows hit their hairlines clearly offended but also unwilling to get in between what Stiles finally catches on is a couple’s spat. The insecurity things is probably true, Lydia’s insults always hurt worse because they are true. Cora doesn’t respond. Instead she sulks deeper into the loveseat, an ill-content rumble comes from her chest.

  
“Don’t worry about them,” Peter says aside to Stiles, “they’re like fire and fire.”

  
“Shut up, Peter.” The two command.

  
He lifts his hands defensively though his face says once again one of his points has just been made.

  
“Actual life or death shit here, people.” Stiles complains, “Assumedly. Definitely worthy of the class’s whole attention? Maybe?”

  
Cora’s lips thin, she mumbles, “Whatever.”

  
“Awesome.”

  
For a moment Stiles thinks about telling them about the waking nightmares, messages from the dead, and the whack-a-mole nemeton—to impress some sense of urgency. He decides against it quick enough. The chorus of ‘they don’t need to know’ can never shut up inside his head. He reminds himself that if they nipped the whole situation in the bud maybe they would never need to know and…holy shit, Stiles makes a face at himself, he’s starting to sound like Doc Deaton. Giving information only when it’s vital is bullshit, Stiles’ self-hatred grows two sizes too big for being such a howling hypocrite. Ha, _howling_.

  
Those truths came with inevitable others, he’s not so human anymore. In a room full of supernaturals that’s not a big deal, the way it came about however is of concern. In this moment he’s Stiles. Guilt ridden, magic practitioner, perpetually up to something Stiles but Stiles all the same. That might change if they knew the darkness he is edging, he doesn’t want them to look at him differently—to hesitate when touching him. They don’t know where he’s been and they don’t know where he can go.

  
“Agreed,” Lydia decides, “Back to real problems. What exactly does a magical aura look like?”

  
“Um,” Stiles taps his lips, “it’s more a feeling than anything.”

  
“Sounds vague and unreliable.” She sighs, blunt.

  
Stiles smiles at her, “Vague and unreliable are the two biggest parts of my personality.”

  
“Liar.”

  
“That too.”

  
“Hey guys,” Danny interrupts in that sorry not sorry way of his, “The kind of coin you’re looking for will definitely be there. Not in the currency area though, they do have three in the burial rite exhibit along with a few well-preserved bodies, which I’m gonna say it once and leave it alone—that’s hella disrespectful. The online security was cobwebs and the physical exhibits are going to have a standing guard in every other room. All of the artefacts are have motion sensors and the smaller stuff are covered in UV sensitive glass.”

  
Stiles blinks.

  
Braeden doesn’t hide that she’s impressed, “Mahealani, right? If you ever want to make some extra money after this, let me know.”

  
“Really, you’re recruiting right now?” Stiles hisses. The older woman shrugs.

  
Jackson splays himself cockily, “Don’t get jealous, Stilinski.”

  
“ _Boys_.” Braeden wearily warns.

  
The Beacon Hills residents share looks of disbelief when Stiles and Jackson actually listen to her. Their familiarity is unfamiliar to everyone else, the division hasn’t been crystal clear or diamond sharp and it still isn’t but it is felt. Derek, Lydia, and Danny, seem to feel the fission the most, they keep whatever thoughts they may have to themselves.

  
Braeden checks the time on her clunky military style watch and gives the room a sweeping look-over stopping on Derek for longer than is comfortable for anyone. She’s been blatantly unimpressed with the exposed brick walls and shoddily patched hole in the wall. Stiles wants to pipe up and defend the place, there’s more furniture now and real food in the kitchen. He thinks Braden has been sizing up the new people too, and found them wanting, but he’s wrong.

  
“Send me the rest of the museum info, Assange,” she says to Danny, “I’ll check the grounds out tonight, I should get there just before dark. Keep an eye on him.”

  
Jackson harrumphs after catching her hard look, “Like I need to be told.”

  
“I don’t need a babysitter!” Stiles’ voice pitches high and scandalized.

  
Braeden laughs all the way out the door waving goodbye to the room, Stiles can hear her laughing for some time down the all while he fumes.

  
“Is she always like that?” Lydia asks, her mouth is starting to curl gently very obviously pleased.

  
“Rude?” Stiles snaps.

  
“Assertive.”

  
“That’s one word for her.” Deucalion can’t help but mumble. He’s about as far away from Cora as he can get and his words earn him a vicious glare from her.

  
Pushing away from his computer letting Kira take his place, Danny stands up and stretches before asking, “You guys…work for her?”

  
“Ha ha no. Well. Jackson is generally useless but he’s usually working on his college classes. I help her with stuff. From time to time.” Stiles explains.

  
Heavy with judgement Lydia repeats, “Stuff?”

  
“College classes?” Danny asks much more warmly.

  
Jackson scratches his cheek to hide his flush, “They’re online, it’s no big deal.”

  
“He almost has his bachelor’s.” Stiles winks.

  
Danny breaks into a happy grin, dimples out in full force, even Lydia is happily surprised by the news. The two allow Jackson to brush them off. Rather than pester his old best friend about his major Danny asks Derek if he’d bring down his monstrosity of a printer enabling him to print out a floor plan. Enabling may be a strong word, Derek’s printer makes awful death rattle noises every time it coughs out a sheet for Danny and Stiles to tape together like puzzle pieces.

  
“Too bad we’re not stealing diamonds, you could glo-up.” Danny says patting the printer far more affectionately than the devil machine deserves.

  
“We don’t have a money problem, we have a Derek problem.” Peter bemoans. He points out little expensive details he or Lydia were responsible for in the loft. Italian leather this, mahogany wood that, Stiles tunes him out until the discussion rounds back to ID’s and backstories he, Kira, and Lydia may or may not need.

  
They were overthinking everything in Stiles’ opinion, overthinking is good. Overthinking covers your bases and your ass. Sure, actual authorities aren’t a huge concern but they were a group of supernatural shady people as such they are more concerned about other groups of supernatural shady peoples. Stiles has all the respect for cops, all the respect, security guards on the other hand…let’s just say he knows what those freaking tasers feel like and Eichen House was not beneficial to his opinion of security guards. Danny and Lydia dismiss the guards quicker than Stiles does, the motion sensors were a bigger concern. Magic isn’t great around complicated electronics, Stiles’ own mixed brand of magic is worse. They would make due.

  
Somewhere between hammering out the finer details of their quilt blanket of a plan and the merits of Kira’s kickass sword belt Stiles grabs a disgustingly healthy vitamin water from the kitchen and makes his way progressively over to the couch as time drags by without really remembering why. Nature, he supposes, if there is a couch in the vicinity Stiles Stilinski is gonna sprawl on it. It’s a good thing Stiles got most of his furniture from resale shops and street curbs, he would have never made it out of Ikea. Lydia and Peter would be horrified, he makes a mental note to tell them sometime.

  
Just as he didn’t mean to make himself so at home Stiles also didn’t mean to fall asleep. In fact he doesn’t realize he had for far too long. Stiles only meant to rest his eyes. His dreams usually let him know he slipped pretty damn fast. Minutes or hours made no difference to the dark places inside him.

Stiles knew what he was experiencing now was no dream. It was nothing. He is trapped in nothing. Heavy, oppressive blackness pressed in on him, flat and depthless. Off all the nightmares Stiles has lived through, the pain he’s seen, void is worse. He reaches out, or tries to, and realizes he can’t move. Nor can he breathe or speak. It feels so real that there’s no way he can keep the panic at bay. He doesn’t even feel like he’s dreaming, he feels like he’s somewhere.

  
In a _place_.

  
As fast as the void crushed him there’s suddenly light. Light and Derek.

  
Derek’s striking mix of forest-hued eyes are as stricken as Stiles feels. Warm hands clutch his shoulders almost too tight, but for a werewolf the grip is practically a kitten touch. The sun is no longer casting the loft in natural light, actually it’s pretty dark outside. Autumn hours sneak up on everybody, every year Stiles never gets used to it. He blinks up at Derek who is still quite close.

  
“Um.”

  
Derek’s face shutters painfully and those dark eyebrows go down, “Are you okay?”

  
“Sure.” Stiles slides out of the grip and sits up cracking his neck. A cursory glance around had Stiles reeling a little more.

There’s a blanket on him and his shoes have been taken off, the evidence of their planning is laid bare in a mess of paper and empty drink containers all over Derek’s table. Someone found a bag of Sunchips and emptied it. The mess rivals his own worktable at home. The most jarring? He and Derek were alone.

  
“Your heart…you sounded like you were having a heart attack.”

  
“Heard many of those?”

  
Derek pulls away, taking his warmth with him, “Once or twice.”

  
“Whoa, really? What did you do?” Stiles asks hoping to avoid the well-worn inquiry of ‘what were you dreaming about’.

  
The question earns him a sardonic look, “I called 911, Stiles, I’m not a doctor.”

  
“Where’s—” Stiles waves his hand around indicating everyone.

  
“Cora and Lydia went to bed after you fell asleep. They mostly went to their room to argue some more. Jackson’s making sure Danny gets home alright. I don’t know where Peter and Deucalion went and I don’t want to know.” Derek grimaces but then tilts his head subtly, “Kira went outside for a phone call, her mother, she’s still out there.”

  
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stay.”

  
“You’re welcome here.” Derek scowls at the floor.

  
“Oh. Thanks.” Stiles grimaces too only for the stiltedness of his own voice.

  
He’s saved from nerve-fueled who-knows-what from pouring out of his mouth by Kira yanking Derek’s big metal door open and rushing in. Her cheeks are flushed, she’d ran up the stairs.

  
“They found another body!” Kira gasps out, breathless.

  
Stiles lies back down pulling the blanket over his head, he hears Derek sigh.

  
“Where?”

  
“The side of the road, by the east entrance to the preserve. Scott’s there with Deaton. Mom’s been keeping a closer eye on everything in town since, ya know. But that’s not the weird part-not that finding a body isn’t terrible! Body finding is terrible! It’s just—”

  
“Kira,” Derek says gently, “breathe.”

  
“Right, right, sorry.” She takes a breath, “The body isn’t like the others, it has a name carved into the back.”

  
“Whose?”

  
“ _His_.”

  
The silence goes on long enough for Stiles to tug down the corner of the blanket and peer out, Derek and Kira are both staring at him because of course they are.

  
“Mine?” Stiles knows his sounds more tired than concerned. At the moment he is more tired than concerned.

  
Kira nods frantically.

  
Stiles quietly pulls the blanket back up. Someone wants to bring a whole lot of attention on him and they did it in a very bloody, very effective way. Stiles grins, his teeth are a touch too sharp and he’s grateful for the blanket, he’s on the right track.

 

  
tbc

 

 

 


	8. Smoke 'Em Out

 

  
**Chapter 8**

  
**Smoke ‘em Out**

 

Beneath Stiles’ sorry excuse for a bed back in Seattle is a box. A shoebox to be precise, the brand is unimportant, they were women’s shoes—nothing fancy. Inside are some of the few things he’d gathered from his old house fueled by fear and panic while a literal mercenary waited on him. Most of the items were already there, a worn book of poetry filled with pressed flowers, sketches, a couple bottles of perfume, and photographs. The photos used to be on the walls but were taken down shortly after Claudia’s death. A couple of years later a little more sober Noah Stilinski asked where he’d put them. Stiles lied, said he didn’t remember. It was a stressful time after all, he’d been young.

Stiles is still not sure why he lied. He guesses he became protective of his mother’s memory in the way only the child of a person can be, once Stiles devoted himself to an idea he was a starved dog with a bone. Protecting memories is an impossible bitterness-breeding task. Memories fade, change, you never remember things quite right. Stiles is pretty sure his mom was a decent singer but that could just be grief and longing sweetening her voice. Derek’s voice is always higher and quieter than the way Stiles remembers their last conversation, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think he’s remembering her wrong. That would be the greatest injustice he could do as the supposed protector of her memory.

  
His dad was never much one for remembering as he was for…idealizing. To Stiles’ dad his mom was the glided forgiver of sins, easy to make smile, the future, hope. To Stiles she was the whisperer and keeper of secrets, before the sickness she looked at Stiles and saw potential, after her brain betrayed her she saw a monster. Stiles remembers the mom who almost took him over the ledge of the hospital roof just as well as the one who taught him with a grin that her famous chocolate chip cookies came from a recipe on the back of the chocolate chip package. Both were important. Both, he thinks, were right.

  
One more thing Stiles lied to his dad about, Stiles was alone with her in the hospital when she died. He’d told his dad she hadn’t said anything, simply took a breath, let it out and never took another one. Stiles had felt her hand go lax in his much smaller grip. Just like with the contents of the box, he’s not sure why he lied. Her last words were clear, no sign of the frantic paranoia or the poisonous accusations that she spat half the time whenever she saw her little boy.

  
She’d been the one to grab his hand, bringing him closer like she was just whispering another secret, “Don’t let me stay buried there, Mischief. Not forever. None of us are supposed to be there forever.”

  
Her grasp was gentle, her eyes full of unshed tears. His mom hadn’t wanted to die, she fought as long as she could. Those words, at the time, sounded like the other strange utterances she’d babble, and if it hadn’t been for her hold on him, her eyes, Stiles would have chalked it up to just that. He hadn’t. He remembered, he’d kept those words safe—guarded them more viciously than his whole shoe box.

  
Her request didn’t make much sense to a young boy, now they make less sense to a young man. She’d told his dad that she wanted to be buried in Beacon Hills, it was home. Home or not, leaning toward not nowadays, Stiles hated going to the cemetery. Not just because of the obvious, but because of those heavy last words. He felt her being there under the ground like a dud flower bulb was wrong, he felt like maybe she would claw herself out. Those Buffy-esque thoughts plagued his little boy mind for weeks. Pretty funny, looking back. No, scratch that, it was fucking horrifying and the current state of his mind is giving him more of all kinds of dreamy memory flashbacks, all distorted through TV snow.

  
Stiles feels like he could see an apparition any time in this town—no need for a cemetery to be near. Even in the middle of Derek’s loft he can’t shake the feeling that the front door is wide open, of ghosts standing invisible before him staring him in the face. It’s probably that sensation forcing those particular old memories through, making him think about his mom again and the memories he’s stuffed beneath his bed. But patterns and coincidence and all that, he decides to scratch the urge and stop by the cemetery on the way to the museum, Braeden would understand.

  
She’d had called soon after Kira hit them with the dead body bomb, one of the worst bombs to be sure, they gave their mutual updates in their usual brusque pretending to be chill about everything manner then he passes the phone off to Jackson. Derek took the obvious threat harder than Stiles. To Stiles it’s a sign they were getting too close for their enemies’ comfort. The threat also meant something else, one he’d only considered after he thought about the box, both under his bed and the expensive one in the cemetery. Again once he grabbed on to an idea, he’s not going to let it go. The longer he holds it, watching silently as Derek clenches and unclenches his hands worriedly and Jackson pacing while he softly speaks into the phone, the more sure he is of it.

  
They were definitely being watched and Stiles’ mind is definitely being influenced by more than just the nemeton.

  
He cracks an unpleasant smirk at himself, “just” the nemeton. Just the nemeton was enough to send the least of them to the sanitarium, in fact, it did already. Exposure incites resistance he supposes, like what shitty parents did to their kids who were afraid of the dark. Take away the light, lock the doors. Don’t let them in.

  
Don’t let them in.

  
Kira and Derek go upstairs to wake up Cora and Lydia, he finds it odd at first but it’s also Cora and Lydia, backup is obviously needed there.

  
Stiles is still groggy, he’s not sure when Jackson actually came back looking so well fucking rested. Jackson hangs up then plops down next to him on the sofa, wiggles down into the warm nest Stiles made and sighs.

  
“When did you even get back?” Stiles asks, he may have drifted off a little after Kira told him about the body, he’d only shut his eyes for a minute—he had thought he hadn’t lost much time, but then he was calling Braeden and Jackson was there.

  
Jackson shrugs, “I heard Kira talking on the way up, by the time I came in you were already zoned out. We’ve been in town for how long? And already bodies are dropping.”

  
Stiles hums, “In our defense, and in ‘our’ I mean ‘mine’, bodies were already hitting the floor before we got here.”

  
“You’re going to go check it out aren’t you?”

  
“Do you think we shouldn’t?”

  
Jackson hesitates the way he always does whenever someone asks him his opinion on how this supernatural shit should proceed, like he’s surprised anyone is asking him at all. Could be a beta thing, could be an adopted child with distant parents who mapped out his whole life since he was a child thing.

  
“It doesn’t sound like some shitty warning to me. It sounds like…bait. Something to distract us.” Jackson finally says.

  
Stiles takes long moments to seriously consider this, chews on his bottom lip as he does, “Sounds legit.”

  
“Yeah?”

  
“Yeah.”

  
“Then what the fuck are we going to do?”

  
Stiles doesn’t get a chance to answer Jackson, which is just fine and dandy with him because he isn’t sure how to yet. They catch sight of Derek silently coming down the stairs, his face pinched into a pensive frown. Kira comes trailing after him cutting him off from speaking, “Scott managed to get the body to Deaton’s before anyone else found it, uh, the body…her.” She winces, “He told Derek he didn’t want to bring any more attention to you or the Sheriff, and we’re all pretty sure this isn’t a regular old serial killer, right?”

  
Regular old serial killer, if only.

  
Derek raises his eyebrows at her, his phone is still in his hand—apparently where all this information had come from, Kira winces again, “Crap, sorry.”

  
Derek huffs and his shoulders rise and fall with the motion distractingly, Jackson notices Stiles noticing and subtly pokes him in the side.

  
“Scott sent the photos from the scene and of the girl to see if you recognize her or if you pick up anything. He wants you to go to Deaton’s as soon as you can.” Derek makes a face showing how much he dislikes the proposition then hands his phone over to Stiles easy as can be—a man unashamed of his search history.

  
Stiles takes one look at the first pic and stands up. He pads over to the kitchen where a half pot of coffee awaits at the ready, he pours himself some then settles down atop the kitchen counter letting his legs kick freely.

  
The pictures aren’t particularly gruesome. There’s little to no blood around the body, indicating she was likely killed elsewhere and placed there later. Her pale skin is neon white illuminated by flashlights, his name, his legal name, is inscribed across her bare back in clean blocky cuts. Hopefully she was dead before they started in on that, he has a feeling she was. In another picture she’s turned over, a hole centers at her chest where her heart would have been, her eyes have been taken. This girl had been a sacrifice and then used to let Stiles know eyes were watching, waiting. Tread carefully little fox, the hounds are near. During the times of the real proper druids being a sacrifice was an honor, one used for mostly criminals sentenced to death more often than not, but still an honor. There was no honor left for this girl save for the blanket presumably Scott had wrapped around her to preserve the modesty of the corpse.

  
“Don’t know her.” Stiles says, “She wasn’t killed there. The body looks fresh.”

  
Derek nods, “Scott said it smelled only a few hours old.”

  
Kira and Jackson glance at each other in that special camaraderie of shared horror.

  
“Jackson,” Stiles decides, “You’re right. This doesn’t change things. Once we’re all ready we’re going after the Obol. I’m not going to Deaton’s. Shit like this doesn’t scare me anymore. But…”

  
He remembers that box beneath his bed at home again and the visions of his mom, Erica, and the silently screaming Allison he had before feeling forced back to this town. He doesn’t dream of the tree anymore, not since they found it in a charred field, nor has he dreamed of the dead. Stiles only dreams of abysmal darkness with no way out. That’s not how his suffering goes, that’s not how the darkness around his heart manifests.

  
“But what?” Kira presses.

  
Stiles looks to Derek, “I need a ride back to the motel.”

  
Even as he nods and retrieves his jacket Derek asks why.

  
“I think we have a mole.” Stiles says with certainty settling in.

  
They shouldn’t have tried to scare him.

  
“What!?” Kira asks, shocked, “Who?”

  
Stiles smiles unkindly, “Me.”

  
You can’t trust a fox.

  
The confusion is palpable.

  
“Make sure Lydia gets out of bed. We’re gonna need a banshee.”

  
With that last order Stiles leaves and Derek follows.

  
Derek’s quiet in the car. Of course Derek is always quiet, but the questions he’s holding back make his silence heavy. Surprisingly the wolf sticks to waiting for Stiles to explain, though apparently does so through the pressure of purposeful silence. It only bothers Stiles because this time he has no intention of keeping secrets. That would be unnecessarily dangerous. Besides he might need some people to pull him out, and really trying to keep shit to himself thus far has proven to be almost pointless. Which doesn’t mean he’ll stop trying, just means that he’s self-aware, kind of.

  
All Stiles needs from the motel room is his grab bag of magical goodies. He’s a little worried he’s about to walk into Duke and Peter snuggle time. Thankfully no one has been there since Braeden—her own grab bag of very different goodies is gone. The missing bag strikes a pang in him, Braeden is gone over half the time in Seattle, her absence isn’t something that should strike him so hard. It’s harder to shake the feeling that his back is exposed without her around and maybe more than anything she’s become a sort of constant in his life…fuck it, he misses his friend.

  
While he gathers up what he needs and stomps on his feelings Stiles explains the basics of what he’s planning to do to Derek. By the way Derek’s jaw ticks he’s not on board. Hardly his fault, Stiles doesn’t sell the whole he and Lydia are gonna swan dive into his unconscious mind to follow the threads left by undisclosed dead people so he can root out the hooks Stiles strongly suspects are in his brain. Magic hooks, requires magic problem solving—his go-to sort of problem solving nowadays.

  
Either there’s someone powerful enough to fuck with him capable of blocking the nemeton’s messages and memories or Stiles’ paranoia is from his own powers eating his fucking brain. Both possibilities kind of made him want to jab an ice pick through his skull. Magical dream walking with a banshee is the considerably gentler option. Stiles doesn’t explain the either or parts of his suspicions, the ride back is just as quiet as before, the names of the dead he keeps to himself as well. No need to add that onto Derek’s eternal internal struggle.

There’s still no good way to tell him sometimes stiles dreamed of his dead family, dead betas, and nearly everyone else Stiles knew that died in this forsaken town. He’s not going to be the Haley Joel Osment of this movie and Derek’s too pretty to be Bruce Willis.

  
At the loft Lydia readily agrees to help, she’s less tense without Peter around as is Cora without Deucalion. Danny had been the one to drop Jackson off earlier that day and stayed home to get together all the totally legal equipment they’ll need. Kira disappears all together, Derek tells him not to worry about it. Which is fucking strange but sure, he’s in no position to complain. So it’s just him, Jackson, Lydia, Cora, and Derek. They’ll be enough.

  
Jackson helps Stiles unpack his stuff. He’s seen enough weird shit Stiles does to not question the voracity of what they’re about to do. No, that’s not true, Jackson always has questions, what he is is on the same page. He knows what beggartick blossom is and knows when Stiles asks for him to hand it to him he’s just joking and making a video game reference. Everyone else’s curiosity is different. Not freaked out, sure, but blatantly unaccustomed to the more simpler ways of magic and that has Stiles’s hackles rising. Not because he’s offended in any way but because they should be familiar with magic. They should recognize it, have some understanding and as a result a defense. As it is they are all wide open to all kinds of attacks. This pack isn’t as protected as it should be, especially Lydia.

  
As a banshee she’s full of open doors all the time, Stiles is a walkin’ talkin’ horror story on what one wrong open door can do. He thinks maybe that door in his head is still cracked a little, it’s the only explanation to why the nemeton would still be actively speaking to him and not Scott. Of the two left the original three final sacrifices Scott was closer but Scott had managed to shut the door inside him. Stiles was never really clear on just how he did that, more pressing matters at the time and all.

  
“What am I supposed to do?” Lydia asks, most of her attention is on Jackson who is sniffing two little bottles to determine which one is white sand and which one is a bone dust and salt mix without having to open them.

  
Her question trips up his temper, or really reforms it into sadness. For Lydia. From what he’s gathered despite support from those who love her she’s been muddling through the banshee thing on her own. She’s suffering from lack of information and foremost a lack of training. Stiles ponders the few other banshees he’s met and whether or not any would answer a call from him. Hard to believe but he sometimes rubs people the wrong way. At the very least Duke or Peter should have proper texts on the subject and he knows Lydia would never ask Peter for anything on her own.

  
“If this works you’re gonna help me figure out what’s not there,” Stiles taps his temple, “so I can figure out what is.”

  
“Sounds convoluted,” Lydia crosses her arms, “and not something I could help you with.”

  
“It is. Trust me.”

  
“Trust that it’s convoluted or trust that she can help you?” Cora asks.

  
Stiles makes a face at her, “I see you wake up helpful as you go to sleep.”

  
Cora copies his face only it’s a lot more menacing when she adds the teeth the snap with.

  
Stiles takes out a big box of salt from the bottom of his bag, asks Jackson to needle out the mugwort and eyebright from the not so neat little piles they have going, and mourns that he doesn’t have anything flashy to do for his audience. Per usual he forms a circle of salt, sprinkles the herbs into a dark bowl, and lights the tea lights he brought at the four cardinal directions. Reaching a hand out of the circle Stiles beckons Lydia to step in, she doesn’t hesitate. The wolves stand around them, three guardians.

  
“If shit looks like it’s going sideways try to wake up.” Stiles mostly says to Jackson.

  
“What the hell does that mean?” Cora demands at the same time Lydia calmly asks how to proceed.

  
Trying for professional to put them both at ease Stiles asks, “Have you ever meditated?”

  
“I’m a mythical Irish fae in California. Of course I have tried meditating, Stiles.”

  
“Point.”

  
The others nod a long like any part of that sentence is perfectly reasonable.

  
“Basically we’re gonna hold hands, stare into this bowl of wet plants and meditate. The physical connection will allow us to go to the same plane together. Kind of like that shitty claw thing Peter can do, less invasive though and less chance of permanent brain damage.”

  
Lydia eyes their clasped hands warily, “And what plane are we going to exactly? I thought we were going into your head…”

  
“The astral plane. Everyone’s consciousness goes there, has their own little corner so to speak but that corner is retained in our own bodies, we can leave it and travel the plane, others can get in, all through doorways. The astral plane is the same place banshees go to speak to the dead and learn who is about to die. It’s tricky, easy to get lost, but you know that already. Besides this isn’t the first time you’ve been in my head. This time I’ll be with you.” He squeezes her hands a little tighter.

  
In a soft tone Derek commands, “Be careful. Both of you.”

  
Lydia tries to give everyone a reassuring smile and Stiles winks.

  
“Alright, ignore how hokey this sounds. Relax. Clear your mind. Stare into the water and don’t let go.”

  
Stiles starts to count backward from one hundred expecting and receiving perfect silence from the on-lookers. The loft is so out of the way from the main part of town and so high up not even the sounds of traffic and humans living life reach them. The numbers blend into a gentle hum until they don’t sound like words anymore, Stiles and Lydia never once look away from the water where the natural oils of the herbs had begun to make swirling patterns and the world around them goes dark.

  
He can feel it when Lydia…changes. The warmth of her hands cools and seeps into Stiles’ own.

  
Now comes the hard part: letting someone in. On purpose. It’s not painful, it feels sort of like breeching water and instead of gasping in air all you get is more water and have no choice but to swallow it. He hates it so damn much he could cry, he never wanted to have to feel this again. Desperate times.

  
“Stiles?” A soft far away voice calls.

  
He blinks, Lydia’s still there holding hands with him only now they’re both standing and surrounded by a thick mist.

  
Immediately Stiles asks, “Are you okay?”

  
Her eyes are a smidge to wide but everything else about her is composed, she nods slowly but the way she’s staring is something of a concern, “Are you?”

  
“Been better.”

  
Too many emotions flit over her face to catch but Lydia ends up looking stern, “I can see that.”

  
Stiles looks down at himself on reflex.

Transparent black smoke fluctuated gracefully around his body, he has the aura of a dark kitsune. Here on the astral plane there was no hiding it. His powers did that on their own naturally, otherwise other supernatural creatures could pick him out of a crowd and where’s the fun in that? That’s his personal theory at any rate. All other kitsune had to be taught that trick when they’re young.

  
The aura isn’t that strong actually but it’s not that that has most of Lydia’s attention, “Your eyes…”

  
“Are silver? Yeah that’s…I know.”

  
“You’re not possessed.”

  
“No.” Stiles sighs glad her words sounded like an affirmation of fact rather than a question.

  
“But the possession had side-effects didn’t it? This is why you Left.” Lydia hasn’t backed away or let go of his hands if anything she’s drawn just a little bit closer, inspecting the metallic sheen of his eyes he suspects.

  
Lydia glares at him, “You idiot.”

  
Stiles frowns, “Why does that hurt so much more coming from you than Derek—”

  
“Because I have a genius IQ and I know you were second in our class before you bailed. Stiles, I don’t care! You’re still you! You’re still Stiles, just more now. Trust me I would know. Scott will understand that. Derek will too.”

  
“What does Derek have to do with—”

  
Lydia silences him with a look, let’s go of one of his hands and points to him, “Idiot,” then points to herself, “genius. But trust me it doesn’t take a genius just eyes.”

  
“I was unstable, dangerous, still am. Both of those things probably.” Stiles says

wondering if this form of himself can blush. He hopes not. That would suck.

  
She nods more serious now, “I believe that too. We’re going talk more about this later.”

  
Story of his life, “…Mhm. When we’re not chilling on the astral plane inside my head?”

  
“Yes. Then.”

  
The landscape of his mind is drabber than Stiles would have thought. The pale mist hovers over everything making seeing into any kind of distance near impossible, the only shape they can actually see is a house looming a handful of yards away from them. The front porch light is on, for a lack of a better way to go, they head towards it.

  
“How will we know what to look for?” Lydia asks sticking close.

  
“I think it’s one of those know it when you see it type of things.”

  
Lydia makes a sound of disgust and rolls her eyes. Once they get close enough to the solitary house Stiles realizes whose house it is. His. The porch light gives off a soft yellow glow seeming as warm as camp fire compared to the creepy Silent Hill mists.

There are odd inconsistencies here there that give the whole structure an aura of wrong, the windows are slightly too small, the door fits into the doorway too perfectly, Stiles shivers. He’s got the uncomfortable feeling if he’d tried to do this on his own he would have been stuck in the mist for a lot longer.  
The second they take the few steps up the porch and open the perfect door Stiles smells his mom’s perfume fresh and clear as if she had just walked by. He hates how the hairs are standing up on his arms—his non-corporeal arms, that’s just fucked.

  
“Wait.” Lydia grabs Stiles’ sleeve and cants her hand gently like a bird, “I can hear something.”

  
The boards creak beneath their weight with every careful step they take together, he doesn’t remember his house ever being so damned ominous. Glassy-eyed she leads them forward, past the living room full of the same décor since Stiles could remember, and up the narrow stairs leading to the bedrooms.

  
A laugh comes from somewhere below, Stiles pauses halfway up the steps and looks down. A young boy darts by too fast to see properly but Stiles would know that buzz cut anywhere.

  
Lydia tugs on him again to get him moving, “You’re haunting yourself.”

  
“Poetic.”

  
“It’s not a ghost, it’s an echo. Come on.” She sounds unshakably certain. Banshee mode is terrifying.

  
When she brings him to his own bedroom door Stiles thinks shit couldn’t get any weirder.

  
He’s wrong of course.

  
Lydia opens his bedroom door, his bedroom is not inside. A moonlit forest stretches out before them. Fireflies echo the night sky hovering like thousands of ground-bound stars. The mist is gone—the air is crisp, clear. Lydia reaches a hand out as if she were feeling an invisible line with her fingertips. For once, Stiles controls the litany of questions that usually have him picking away at the things he doesn’t know. Knowledge is power, in this case knowledge is knowing when to keep your trap shut.

  
Without the aid of a path Lydia steps like she knows where to go, Stiles follows. Further in, what could have been miles or half a block, the forest trees become sparser opening up to a blue-black sky and the light of a bright white full moon. Under the light he can instantly sense a strong foreign magic. The urge to turn back pushes at him, it’s strange and alien and fills him with fury.

  
His not so hidden nature flares around him, the promise of violence blanketing him is so much closer here. He can taste copper and electricity. Lydia tightens her grip, Stiles probably can’t do a great job of Elsa-ing his shit inside his own head. No conceal, all feel. She doesn’t say anything about his energy spasms, rather she stays firm, focused on dragging him along.

  
It’s disorienting how empty the forest seems. Stiles’ head is always so busy from the outside. They spot the reason for the silence in a familiar clearing. Calling what they see a tree is a misnomer, it’s a parasite bigger around than the nemeton, ‘tree’ in shape only. The bark is black and glistens in the moonlight like its wet. There’s not a single leaf on the branches made all the more stark by all the other brush and small trees in the clearing being viciously cut down to presumably make room for the new addition. If Stiles had to guess, by someone using a chainsaw. What the fuck was happening to him when he’s sleeping?

  
“This is it.” Lydia says coming fully out of her fugue state.

  
“Yeah.”

  
“How do we get rid of it?”

  
Stiles shakes his head helplessly, “Cut it down? I just don’t know ho—”

  
“I think you’ve been trying.” She sweeps her arm over the tree carnage which he assumed somebody else was responsible for, “It’s your mind, imagine something sharp.”

  
Something sharp.

  
A faint tingle runs across Stiles’ palm, he looks down, in his hand materializes a black Oni blade dripping crimson blood. Horrified, he drops the blade and recoils. Lydia grabs him roughly by the shoulders unconcerned about his unearthly aura and draws him down until they are face to face.

  
“Think of something else.” She commands, fingertips digging in.

  
He does. Easy as breathing the Oni blade just isn’t any more, in its place is an axe just as black but bloodless and made for cutting down trees the old fashioned way.

  
Reluctantly Stiles gently moves Lydia’s hand off him so he can retrieve the axe. The second his hand makes contact the tree shivers, he glances up and Lydia gasps. The tree is littered with palm-sized eyes all along the trunk and tall spindly branches staring at Stiles with glassy interest. Stiles doesn’t wait anymore, he hefts the axe up, strides over and gives it his best homerun swing expecting the same resistance as real wood. What he gets is the axe cleaving through the eyes and bark like raw meat.

  
It’s gross yet he doesn’t let up. With every slice he can feel the cobwebs lifting, that nameless oppressive presence getting weaker and weaker. At the last chop through sticky sinew a high-pitched ringing grows in his ears. The rest of the parasitic tree melts away revealing a worse-for-wear nemeton beneath, Stiles heaves a breath not sure if its presence is a good or bad thing.

  
Lydia rushes over then leans down pressing her ear against the whorls in the wood. The color drains from her face, “Stiles. I can hear Allison.”

  
The ringing sound becomes painful, warm light erupts from the top of the nemeton enveloping them both.

  
Stiles opens his eyes, a rush of awareness fills him where there had only been a muted sense of nebulous wrongness. It would be a relief, except Lydia’s staring at him.

  
“I could hear them all.” She says in a hushed voice, “Allison.”

  
Jackson breaks the circle around them with his shoe, Derek is immediately at Stiles’ side as Cora goes to Lydia to support her in the same fashion. The wolves look ready to bundle them up in bubblewrap or something equally unnecessary. To prove his inherent badassery Stiles gets to his feet, less than gracefully. He doesn’t feel himself falling backwards into Derek’s chest.

  
“Jesus.” Stiles blinks up at dark scruff and a perfect jawline, bewildered momentarily by Derek’s…everything, up close and personal.

  
“Jesus.” He says again for good measure.

  
“What happened?” Jacksons asks near hovering himself.

  
Not-quite half slurring Stiles summarizes for them, “Gross thing in my head, fucking magical surveillance bug. Gone now. Lydia brings the banshee A game, like always.” He uses Derek’s arms to lever himself down back to a sitting position on the floor. He can feel the presence of the nemeton impatiently already prodding at him. It’s annoying, but preferable over what they just forced out of him.

  
Lydia has less trouble getting to her feet, Cora keeps a hand wrapped carefully around her wrist though. Stiles isn’t sure of Cora’s history with this type of hands on magic-ing, she’s pretty chill about it other than her obvious concern unlike her brother who has let go of Stiles and is looking around his loft like he wants to pour Pine-sol over everything. Nothing clears magical residues like Pine-sol, someone should pay him for cleaning supply slogans then he could start his life anew for the third time. Go someplace without any trees at all. Like a fucking desert. Just a nice desert, Stiles thinks, he could lie out in the middle of nowhere and stay there.

  
“Stiles.” Lydia says more composed than she has any right to be after magic school-busing through Stiles’ brain.

  
“Lydia.” He repeats tiredly.

  
“Is it always like that?”

  
“With the—,” Stiles makes an explosion sound and flails his hands. All in all their whole experience was less horrific than he was preparing himself for.

  
“No. With the dead.” At that the wolves still, Lydia doesn’t back down, “I’m a banshee Stiles. I know dead people when I hear them. See them. When the light came up from the nemeton…I saw so many, but Allison, she spoke to me.”

  
“You could understand her?” Stiles doesn’t really need to ask. Of course Lydia could hear Allison, she could probably hear any one of the dead that have tried to communicate with Stiles but more than that Allison was her best friend. Had Stiles been a little more trusting and a little less side-tracked by drama he might have asked Lydia about them before. He should have.

  
Nodding Lydia tucks her arms into herself feeling a chill no one else can. Cora hugs her from behind, eyes glowing in distress.

  
Stiles leans forward earning a growl from Cora, “What did she say?”

  
“…She said she’s growing weak. That she couldn’t guard them for much longer. She said…burn it all.” Lydia tilts her head into Cora’s neck and sighs.

  
“Excuse me.” Peter’s smooth sardonic voice chimes from Derek’s staircase. How he got back inside without anyone noticing once again is a creepy problem for another creepy day, “But when an Argent, dead or not god rest the girl’s soul, starts quoting Targaryens maybe we should all be a bit skeptical. Also, I can’t believe you’re all doing a ritual in Derek’s living room and no one called me.”

  
“We weren’t summoning Satan, so there was no reason for you to make an appearance.” Stiles mutters.

  
“Ouch,” Peter puts his hand over his heart, those sharp eyes of his though are on Lydia, assessing.

  
Defensively Derek crosses his arms, “He’s not wrong.”

  
Lydia extracts herself from her girlfriend’s protective hold, Cora huffs, and walks right up to the Hale men, “We can trust Allison.”

  
At Stiles’ side Jackson appears with a bottle of water and a handful of aspirin, Derek looks like he’s about to protest the amount however a redhead is staring him down and Stiles downs them all in a second before anyone can make a peep. Derek’s glare moves from Lydia to Jackson who returns the look and then some. Jackson purposefully shakes the bottle of aspirin at Lydia in question, she shakes her head no.

  
“I’m fine, Jax, nothing hurts.”

  
Stiles smiles at her, for reassurance and also for putting the nickname ‘Jax’ out there in the world because it makes Jackson go a little red, “Ignore Peter. I believe you. What do you think she means?”

  
She relaxes and turns away from Derek and Peter with a flip of her hair, “I don’t know. But she showed me something else. I think it was her anyway, a grove of trees. Like the one we cut down inside you.”

  
Stiles starts, “Shit, how many?”

  
“I didn’t get a chance to exactly count, Stiles.”

  
“What do a bunch of trees mean?” Jackson’s impatience makes him sound angrier than he is, “And where the hell is Duke?”

  
“Deucalion is fixated on making sure you two Neanderthals eat for some reason. He abandoned me to pick up food with pronounceable ingredients.” Peter sighs and casts a disgusted look between Stiles and Jackson before sidling back to the staircase for that maximum looming effect. Stiles has to admit, the man has chosen an aesthetic and has stuck to it.

  
“And, Jax, a bunch of trees mean since I had someone peeping in my head blocking the nemeton’s mojo taking notes other people with connections to the nemeton probably have the same thing happening to them.”

  
“Our plans are compromised?” Peter grimaces.

  
“Yeaaah? But thanks to Lydia, they won’t be anymore. As long as everyone is down with taking one for the team.”

  
“What do we have to do?” Derek asks.

  
Stiles holds up one finger, “First, everybody in this room needs to let Lydia—”

  
“No.” Derek and Peter say. The uncomfortable faces they make at each other is truly poetic, Stiles gets it.

  
Jackson scoffs, “Not suspicious at all, assholes.”

  
“Anyone with specific links to the nemeton needs to be looked at.” Lydia determines unflinchingly, “Turn about is fair play, Peter, I would promise to be gentle but..”

  
Peter snarls slightly at her, Cora snaps right back. Family dinners must be exhausting.

  
“You sure you can handle doing all that again for a bunch of people?” Cora asks Lydia, “I don’t mind you being in my head. If that counts for anything.”

  
Lydia gives her a genuine wide smile, “It counts for a lot. I’ll be fine, it really didn’t hurt. I think Stiles took all the brunt of it, even if that’s not the way it worked out we would still have to do this. I refuse to let anyone have an advantage over us.”

  
She’s a tough girl, one of the toughest, Stiles muses. He’s proud of her despite not having anything to do with the way her strength has grown. She’s also right. People with particular connections to the nemeton would be prime, fuck, sleeper agents, full-on Battlestar shit. Scott and himself would be at the top of anyone’s list in those terms—the last two standing of a trio of final sacrifices. Having an alpha as a source of information would be smart. An alpha who knew everyone in town and everything that happens. An alpha who should have some sense of a disturbance in the nemeton’s energy through the same link as Stiles. Except he hasn’t, he would have said something to somebody. Scott is compromised, he doesn’t even know it, there was no way to know unless you knew what you were looking for. It must be making the recent string of murders hard to deal with. Fuck, Scott.

  
Then there were the Hales, their history with that damn tree ran deep. Any one of them could have been someone the nemeton could have reached out to for…help? Come to think of it, the nemeton’s way of speaking to him, shitty as it was, didn’t start to become disrupted until Peter found out where Stiles hung his hat. Just a few hours ago that realization would have never occurred to Stiles. Creepy.

  
“They have to let you in, Lydia. They need to agree or it won’t work.” Stiles hates asking this of anyone.

  
The Hales have all been messed with too much already, but the possibility of anything using them makes hate for whoever is doing this burn in his heart. How dare they touch the Hales, Lydia, Scott.

  
Stiles makes himself face Derek, “We would never try to force you to do anything. You know I’m not that kind of asshole.”

  
Quietly Derek responds, “I know you’re not.”

  
“But if they don’t we have to leave don’t we?” Jackson asks, the question already etching disappointment into his face.

  
Stiles shrugs, a yes more or less, they couldn’t risk being watched all the time and they’ve made due on their own this far. They could keep going on their own if need be. The easy solidarity makes Stiles want to give Jackson an uncomfortably long hug. Before Stiles can give a verbal affirmative Peter prowls over, sans his usual panther grace, eyes flashing in rare actual aggression. Derek and Cora are instantly blocking him. Peters stops, tense and still in the way wild animals do when they are ready to strike. The air is charged for a fight and as fast as Peter seemed ready to throw down the feeling passes, he blinks. The smallest of crinkles appears between his brows—the barest wisp of vulnerability before his face is schooled into a blank mask.

  
Peter takes a step back and says, “Ah.”

  
Speaking for the confused collective Jackson stares, “What the fuck?”

  
“You okay, Sneaky Pete?” Stiles shows no fear coming closer to arguably the most dangerous beta around. His trust that Peter’s not going to lash out is enough to relax everyone except Derek who has learned to never underestimate what Peter is capable of in the worst ways.

  
Peter squares his shoulders, rubbing his temples briefly he murmurs, “I don’t know why I…I felt…”

  
“Trapped? Not in control?” Stiles knows from firsthand experience.

  
Peter nods, pauses, then turns swiftly to Stiles, “Do it. Before I change my mind.”

  
“Stiles, show me what to do.” Lydia demands all business. Peter’s hands have curled into bloody fists, his face remains impassive.

  
Not wanting to waste time and press their luck Stiles describes what to, Lydia absorbs it all flawlessly. Surprisingly neither Lydia nor Peter tries to prod at each other, or maybe it’s not. As Peter is often wont to say, they’re all works in progress. There’s still some resistance on both of their ends when they try to enter a meditative state however they manage it. From the outside point of view the ritual is pretty boring. Stiles aches for fresh air but there’s no way he’s leaving until Lydia and Peter are conscious again.

  
Along with boring, it takes less time from the outside as well, roughly thirty minutes later Lydia and Peter gasp awake. Pale-faced and unsteady Peter gets to his feet and wordlessly stalks back up the spiral stairs.

Everyone sends questioning looks at Lydia.  
She hesitates then sighs, “He did have a parasitic tree, it was bigger than yours Stiles, easier to find. In Peter’s mind it grew from inside the old Hale house.”

  
Cora frowned, “How’d you get rid of it?”

  
“Stiles could summon an axe, Peter’s mind wasn’t stable enough to do something so specific, he summoned…fire. He burned it down. The house went up with it.”

  
“Fuck.” Jackson breathes summarizing the thoughts of everyone else. Derek looks at his stairs for a long moment, he may want to go after his uncle but it’s moot, because he doesn’t.

  
Cora goes next once Lydia assures her that she’s perfectly fine, it’s taxing sure but nothing like being the one who has to purge their brain of dark magic. Cora passes with flying colors, no parasite to be found. Whatever else her mind revealed about her has the two girls smiling softly at one another. Jackson makes a face behind them, he goes for disgusted and misses the mark by a mile. Stiles can tell he’s happy Lydia has someone who appreciates her. However you can still be happy for someone and envious at the same time, it’s hard for people to look on those in love and not think of their own love. This Stiles understands and is glad his scent can’t be monitored thanks to his anti-tracking spell, for some weird reason Derek may be able to hear his heartbeat but at least he can’t sniff out his messy as fuck emotions.

  
Derek changes his mind after Peter’s reaction, and he seems to relax a bit after fully realizing Stiles isn’t the one who would be inside him. God. God, Jackson is going to give him so much shit later, he just knows it. He’s not sure how to feel about Derek’s obvious relief. It’s hard not to think of it in ‘let’s not let the demon-influenced guy in people’s minds’ terms. Knowing Derek it’s more about Derek than Stiles. Badass magic powers do wonders for the ego, Stiles decides not to be offended because holy shit how long is he gonna angst about this? He takes a calming breath and does his best to be supportive.

  
Derek looks neither very supported nor calmed. Stiles ends up hanging back with Jackson while Lydia gets down to it. Derek passes even faster than Cora. Finally Jackson is examined and also proves to not be ‘infected’. Lydia is the only one in the loft not to be checked and Stiles isn’t capable of going into someone else’s mind on his own however she could hear the dead whispering from the nemeton before the parasites were removed.

  
Her powers are not being impeded.  
Stiles does his best to cobble together something to scan her just in case, this technique would only work on someone who is naturally psychically open. The only energies he gets off her are the cool waters of banshee , his skin prickles—reacting to faerie blood. Nothing evil, nothing watching. Compared to his own nearly sinister aura Lydia’s power is a balm.

  
Now what Stiles has is two groups of people, one he can trust and one he trust but can’t tell shit because fucking magic. Lydia being able help pull out the trees like weeds makes her a target, going after the others would be risky. Danny, Duke, Kira, and Braeden weren’t replaceable in the plan. They needed a different plan. Sort of.

  
Lydia blows out a breath and takes a place on the sofa tucked into Cora, glad to be done for now, “We need to help the others as soon as possible.”

  
“Or not.” Stiles says.

  
Derek blinks, “Or not?”

  
“Er, not yet?”

  
“Stop fucking around, Stilinski.” Jackson barks.

  
Stiles cants his head, smiles, “We’re going trick them. The ones doing this to us. Let them think our plan is pretty much the same by letting Braeden and Duke and the rest think the same—they’ll forgive the skeevy-ness, stick to it. We’ll have to upsell a bit, and lie a little here and there, but,” he snaps his fingers, “if it works we can set a trap. No more waiting around. We get the Obol and maybe catch some bad guys.” The others don’t look so sure of the brilliance of this, more than likely it’s the lying to their friends part that isn’t sitting too well. Braeden and Duke will understand, would do the same if the positions were reversed, Stiles isn’t sure about the rest. He’s not sure he cares too much.

  
For the second time in like, just a few freaking hours, Peter makes Stiles almost jump. Once again he saunters down the stairs letting his voice match the threatening nature of his movements, the wolf smiles, “Oh, we’ll do more than catch them. We’re going to tear their hearts out.”

  
Stiles rolls his eyes at the drama of it all but gives Peter one of his own toothy grins because, yes, yes they are.

 

 

 

tbc

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the comments and kudos!   
> You can find me at thewinterdaredevil on tumblr :)


	9. Make A Shadow

 

**Shovels and Dirt**

  
Chapter 9:

  
Make a Shadow

 

Beacon Hills remains known as a quiet town throughout the county despite being a supernatural hub, Stiles remains sure the nemeton is ironically responsible for that. The cemetery is by far the quietest, more so than the woods and hills surrounding the town. Those picturesque trees were always hiding something with sharp teeth or glowing eyes. Frankly it’s a fucking miracle nothings come crawling out of the cemetery itself yet. Keyword yet. For now Stiles feels perfectly safe sitting among the headstones, staring at his mom’s engraved name.

  
The stone is basic, not one of those massive family things bearing the names of his dad and him as well as his mom’s as if patiently waiting for their eventual deaths too. Putting living names on undug graves always seemed like inviting bad luck to Stiles. They still had lots next to hers, which doesn’t bother him nearly as much. Dirt is just dirt, until someone digs it up.

  
No one has disturbed a single blade of grass on Claudia Stilinski’s grave, it’s as peaceful as Stiles remembers. With the shade provided by the tall, knotted cypress trees and sweet-smelling air he could probably fall asleep here, if he had the time. However Derek’s waiting for Stiles in his Camaro at the front gates while everyone else heads up the road out of town. There are no Hale headstones in the cemetery, Stiles knows better than to ask. He’s got theories of course, obviously, and he’s learned more about actual werewolf culture since being away. It’s amazing what the right books can do as well as having an Alpha around willing to share. The point is there’s no reason for Derek to do anything but give Stiles a little time and a little space.

  
Stiles isn’t sure what he thought he’d find here. The urge to visit is sated but the vague certainty he’s missed something sits uneasy inside. He kisses two fingers and presses them to his mom’s stone; it’s cold as a block of solid ice. A shock of numb goes through the tips of his fingers and disperses.

  
Could be the cold temperatures of fall seeping into stone that never got direct sunlight.

  
Could be something else.

  
Something else Stiles doesn’t have the time for right now. He backs away from the grave, irrationally not turning around until he’s a good ten feet away. When he slides back into Derek’s car the other man glances his way for a hesitant second. Stiles expects him to ask the age old ‘are you okay?’, the same words people always ask the living at cemeteries. Derek doesn’t say a word, simply starts the car, the well-tuned engine loud enough to make Stiles cringe after the perfect quiet, and calmly follows the narrow lanes out onto the main stretch of highway.

  
Nothing good happens in Derek’s car. For Stiles. Running from authorities? Sure. Passing out from a night of sleep walking into the dark and deadly woods? Check that off the list. So his imagination should not be running the way it’s running.

  
The stupid, stupid, flush forming on his face from looking at Derek’s stupid face this close is frankly annoying. At least Derek doesn’t say anything about it, he’s just sort of tense, nostrils flaring. And, oh, oh no, Derek can hear his heartbeat when he shouldn’t be able to. He can probably smell…so much. To stop thinking thoughts would be amazing, Stiles slouches down into his seat without much dignity. Any residual, situational damn it, lust, is quickly replaced by embarrassment and anger. Sort of at Derek, who must feel it because now Derek’s making a weird confused whiplash face. The spell that blocks Stiles from the senses of werewolves works just fine thank you very fucking much with every other wolf.

Now Derek can smell him as well as hear his heart, maybe it’s about prolonged exposure? Jackson and Duke would have said something though.

  
Time and time again Derek always has to be the exception to all of Stiles’ rules.

  
He could ask the surliest Hale his thoughts about it, hash it out some in a way that doesn’t make Stiles look so complicit. Derek knows some shit. Or Stiles could sit there in awkward silent misery. Okay, maybe not silent, but misery is definitely the hill Stiles decides to die on. He wishes Jackson was in the backseat. His supposed friend abandoned him to ride with Danny, apparently a whole night together was not long enough to iron out some of their issues. Jackson seemed put out about it, as if he were expecting things to just be okay after all that time. He didn’t even want to come back to town and now the dude is trying out his old roles like a favorite suit. Stiles doesn’t really have room for judgment. Not in this freaking car.

  
It’s awful, the deep want Stiles has to be around Derek and the simultaneous sharp instinct to get far away. Has to be for survival, deep down Stiles knows the longer he’s with the other man the more impossible getting over him looks. Derek would put up with him, is currently putting up with him, out of some obvious sort of misguided responsibility. Stiles blames his father. No one can spend any amount of time around his dad without picking up one or two habits. Stiles really doesn’t want to be a burden for either of them.

  
The depressing aura Stiles is no doubt exuding becomes oppressive enough that Derek is one hundred percent about to actually use his words, something uncomfortable for both of them. Fast as he can Stiles saves them the pain by switching on the radio uncaring how ridiculous he looks. The station is one Stiles always used to listen to, he’s surprised Derek doesn’t listen to harder stuff. For all Derek’s rough and grumble ways, the literal growling, there’s always been something positively dainty about him. Elegant? Peter is elegant too in a far more purposeful way. One is trying to present himself as above the world the other doesn’t want anyone to know he collects special edition Jane Austen novels. Like, really special edition, Stiles isn’t sure they should be stuffed under Derek’s bed like dirty magazines. Rare books tend to need a bit more tender care than that.

  
Magical tomes on the other hand, you could drop those things down a well and they would be fine ten years later. Hell, sometimes they’ll crawl out all on their own. Magic. Creepy but so cool.

  
Music playing helps them both relax a bit. Derek’s not side-eyeing him any more so Stiles doesn’t feel too bad about most of his attention going to bothering Jackson and Braeden via text. They are equally unwilling to play distraction only because they both know exactly what he’s doing. Assholes. It’s going to be a long ride to go without making conversation, trying would be pointless. At least on Stiles’ end. No matter how he’s acted he does have questions.

  
All of Derek’s answers are to the point and carry a fraction less of the heavy judgement from earlier. Stiles keeps to inane topics, he can easily extrapolate more meaning from them than intended and he doesn’t want to get too deep in it with Derek with no escape.

  
“What did Dad do with my Jeep?”

  
“It’s still in his driveway, I…” Derek’s jaw clenches.

  
“Dude, what?”

  
“I did some work on it, I didn’t know if—”

  
“You worked on my Jeep? Like, fixed things?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Dude,” Stiles shifts in his seat, carding his fingers through his hair while he adjusts. Derek tracks the motion with his eyes only stopping when he notices Stiles noticing him, they both look away, “Um thanks, for that. You didn’t have to. I’ve missed it.” Braeden said the Jeep was way too recognizable, even with new tags. It had been the final hurt on his way out.

  
Derek shrugs minutely, “There was a lot of duct tape. The Sherriff said it was your mom’s.”

  
Suddenly Stiles’ eyes sting and he croaks, “Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

  
Unable to stop himself Stiles blurts, “I don’t regret leaving.” Stiles ignores the way Derek starts to look angry and barrels on, “I had to. I hate that anyone hurt because of me. I hate that so much you have no idea. But I hate what could have happened more. Something bad would have happened, Derek, I wouldn’t have been able to live with that.”

  
So much for keeping things shallow.

  
“You could have trusted m—us.” Derek says keeping his eyes on the road.

  
“I was unstable.”

  
“You seem stable enough now.”

  
Stiles outright laughs, “Do I?”

  
Derek sighs, “None of us are…completely okay.”

  
“I’m dangerous.”

  
“So am I.”

  
Stiles shakes his head, “I can’t win this argument with you can I?”

  
“It’s not an argument. I—” The wolf snarls quietly and jerks his head to the side out of Stiles’ view, “Just. Don’t disappear like that again.”

  
Stiles smiles an ambiguous smile and doesn’t agree or disagree.

  
After that it’s a lot easier to talk about little things. Derek eventually gives in to Stiles’ purposefully frivolous car games. Braeden is the only one to stay strong against Stiles in a confined space with few activities. Military training, she’d quote, against all form of torture. Derek’s more willing to humor him, has always been more willing to humor him than over half their little group even when tensions ran high. Not always, but more than most people. That mattered to teenagers with a litany of self-esteem issues.

  
A couple hours later after a surprisingly pleasant car ride the two arrive at their rendezvous point not far behind the others. Not the museum, rather the donut shop across the street from the museum. Braeden meets them there holding out a box of chocolate glazed in one hand and coffee for Stiles, Jackson, and Duke in the other. Everyone else is mercilessly told to fend for themselves.

  
Having Braeden at his side again feels a lot like competency. Even with the possibility of a mind parasite chilling in her brain a nameless tension eases in his chest.

  
The coffee is good, the donuts are better, and the amount of hardware Danny makes Jackson lug around for him is the most impressive of all. In half an hour under Danny’s guidance Jackson has Braeden’s van converted into a ramshackle surveillance vehicle. Stiles isn’t sure if the donuts negate the badass-ness of the whole thing. If they don’t him choking on his last bite certainly does, Cora lands a solid wallop to the middle of his back hard enough to readjust his spine.

  
“Thanks.” He sputters.

  
She spares him the age old ‘how are you still alive’ look all Hales have perfected regarding Stiles, and honestly? Mood.

  
Blushing furiously Stiles remembers to mumble a charm to help anyone stumbling upon them to look over them, the charm wouldn’t hold up to a lot of scrutiny but it’s the best he can do on the fly. Afterwards he sidles in next to Danny inside the van before Jackson can with every intention to hover. Derek follows so that they each can look over a shoulder. Danny just smiles.

  
According to Braeden security is abysmal. Low security, compared to the other places Braeden is used to anyway, is to be expected from a museum on the smaller side. It’s not the freaking Louvre. All the cameras run on a CCTV feed which their resident hacker easily hijacks. Half the visitors are bored middle-schoolers and the other half are the types to collect wheat pennies. Or shrunken heads, hard to tell with those kinds of people actually. It was the stamp collectors people really needed to watch out for.

  
No one outwardly suspicious has been clocked by Braeden in the time she’s been there. She’s done a few thorough sweeps and kept a constant eye on the front entrance until they showed up like a discount brand Scooby gang. He can only assume her info is correct for now and that she’s not lying against her will for the bad guys. Either way he has to go along with it.

  
Everything is set for Stiles to go in, buy a ticket, and peruse the collections. As young and wild nearly twenty-somethings are wont to do. Coinage is so hot with the kids right now. All this might be for naught if the obel isn’t a legit magical artifact. Lydia wants to go in with him, set it up and get it done. Braeden points out the advantage of waiting for the cover of night, doing simple interior recon is all they really needed although she’s never been one to stand in the way of another person’s mistakes in motion. Who doesn’t like being a spectator when one of those box cars go flying? Decent good-hearted people probably. Lydia on the other hand has never been one to let anything stand in her way period. The two women compromise, right over Stiles’ head as Kira shoots him a sympathetic look. Peter, who had done nothing but silently lurk thus far, is unimpressed with his lack of assertiveness. Stiles bears his teeth.

  
Lydia and Kira are going in with him, if any shit goes down they are to call Braeden immediately. Stiles nods, lying verbally to her would go about as well as putting a donkey in the Kentucky Derby. Everyone checks their phones, the CCTV, and do their awkward individual versions of ‘be careful’.

  
At the top of the next hour the three cross the street. Stiles and Lydia go arm in arm, to the disgruntlement of the Hale siblings, and Kira brings up the rear before slipping away from them. She’s going to a different part of the building anyway and they were going for low-key. The museum is small but pretty—lots of juxtaposed matte white and glossy marble white, high ceilings, and an elaborate fountain swimming with bacteria in the center of everything. Between the barrage of men’s brand body spray and cooking food from the small café tucked in a little corner Stiles smells something Other. Rain and rust. Some of the sigils on his skin throb but they ebb off quickly enough, still, he tightens his arm that’s interlocked with Lydia’s.

  
There’s only one other level above them, neatly labeled signs direct them to the stairs leading to the ‘Coins and Currency of the Ancients’ section, it’s the largest part of the exhibit but by no means the only stuff the museum has on display. Stiles and Lydia turn together and head up the stairs, a rowdy boy followed closely by his bedraggled mother rush by them on the way down. They catch Stiles’ eye, he frowns at the unusually cold air they gust into his face. He turns back to the top of the steps then feels a prickling along his arms.

  
A barrier of some sort stretches across the floor where the last step meets waxed tile, he and Lydia pass through it with little resistance but there is a walking through knee-deep water sensation for a short moment. At least one guard should be stationed close by, undoubtedly other people—there’s no one.

  
“Stiles?” Lydia tugs his arm a bit when he doesn’t keep moving forward.

  
“You don’t feel like screaming do you?”

  
Lydia blinks then glares, “No. Not yet. But give me a few more minutes with you.”

  
“Haha.” He snarks back, “ Seriously, no spider senses tingling?”

  
She looks around, “Your mercenary friend said the security are spread thin right? They must move around a lot. Let’s get going.”

  
Reasonable, Stiles can only nod lacking concrete evidence to dispute her. The vague smell of age and rust grows stronger the closer to the coin collection they get, tomb-like. Stiles leads them along following the strange smell like a bloodhound. Magical auras don’t normally register on other senses unless they were powerful. There’s no doubt in his mind the obel is here.

  
A combination of the strange scent and tell-tale energy guides him to a simple case standing in an island of its own in the center of the first large brightly lit room they come to. Coins and small pieces of pressed metal covered the walls behind glass but it’s the case before them that holds the prized pieces of the collection. Stiles peers around suspiciously and probably looking all kinds of suspicious himself. They remain well and truly alone. If there is a camera in the room he can’t see proof of one which doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

  
All the energy is definitely pooled around the center case. The old coins inside are eroded from age, a few noble profiles are still visible on half, others don’t depict faces at all created during a time before common rulers. One has a little more shine than the others, not mint new yet not something that could be picked out of a pocket of change in a hot second either. A sun is etched into the side he can see and painstakingly small Greek words lined the edges all the way around. This one had been in someone’s grave, protected from most elements. Ancient tombs were like time capsules, once enough years passed no one cared that they were tombs at all. The Egyptians had it right, fill up your grave with enough traps to maim and enough old magic to curse entire generations. Make the fuckers work for it. Oh yeah, he’s still salty about the whole concept.

  
Lydia leans in, curious, “This is the one, isn’t it?”

  
“Yep.” Stiles resists the urge to tap on the glass, “Kinda underwhelming.”

  
“Should I text Kira?”

  
Stiles takes another look around. He’d decided last night with everyone Lydia purged to be as unpredictable as possible. Planning and being unpredictable were hard to pull off side by side, he did learn things from the nogitsune though and he’s far past shying away from ill-gotten gains.

  
“No time like the present.” He says sending Braeden what amounted to a ‘mission go’.

  
She’s not happy about it; if they were face to face with less of an audience she’d have a few choice words for him. Professionalism is the only thing that keep him from that Stiles knows, she reports all is quiet on the outside and that she’s sending their wolves to cover all exits.

  
Where normally this sort of thing pushes all Stiles’ giddy buttons right this second his mood is more along the lines of a lion pacing its cage. The urge to get out of there is something he can taste. It takes him far too long to recognize that the urge to leave is not his own, the realization sends unpleasant nausea through his body at the same time the power goes out in the entire building.

  
The electricity going out would be fine. Cutting the power is what Kira is there for, except, judging from Lydia’s deeply troubled face that is not what’s happened.

  
Lydia’s phone dings, she looks Stiles in the eyes, “Kira’s confirming it’s not her.”

  
There’s a lot they’re not saying, Stiles makes an executive decision in the meantime. He pulls the silk scarf Lydia wore in that complemented her hair color or something off her and quickly wraps it around his fist. Her mouth falls open in outrage looking from his fist to the glass case Stiles is sizing up.

  
“That’s what you were planning to do this whole time!?” Lydia whisper-screams.

  
“Unless you have a diamond-tipped glass cutter in your make-up kit, Lydia!” Stiles snaps.

  
“Well, if you had said something!”

  
Stiles breaks the glass. First try. It’s awesome. No alarms go off either due to Danny’s interference or the power, he’s not sure if the lights and alarms would be on the same grid. Not his department. The sound of glass shattering is covered by the throngs of screaming kids a level below accompanied by their yelling chaperones. Most of the screams are in obvious glee, school kids happy something non-history related is happening, the younger ones are not so enthused by the sudden dark.

  
Stiles swipes the obel from the wreckage along with the one next to it probably from the same time period. Calmly as they can they head to the stairs, starting down them just as Lydia’s phone rings.

  
“It’s Danny,” Lydia says quickly, “He can’t get into the grid—doesn’t know why. Derek Hale don’t you yell at me! Ugh. Here.” She thrusts the phone into Stiles’ hand and keeps them slowly descending the steps.

  
Stiles huffs, “Not the best time Der—” all the ambient light coming from the windows, doors, cell phones, and security flashlights go out in a blink, plunging everything into a pitch black. The excited screams of the kids become true fear. To avoid tripping Stiles and Lydia stop in their tracks.

  
“What’s going on?” Derek growls from the phone, the phone that is still working, huh.

  
A bit too blasé Stiles replies, “Something just sucked all the light out of the building.”

  
A chorus of “What!?” echoes from the phone’s speakers.

  
“Stiles,” Lydia whispers, “You’re sure about this?”

  
Nodding Stiles answers Derek, “Everything is under control, big guy. Stick to the plan.” Stiles hangs up with every intention of calling them back seconds later.

  
The plan, the plan is more of a seat of their pants type of situation in all honesty. They did have some actually planned parts like responsible thieves.

  
Stiles bumps his shoulder against Lydia’s, “We didn’t come all the way here to run away. Well, I didn’t.” He finds her hand in the dark and presses the obel into her palm. “Don’t worry, Jackson will protect you. And I can protect myself.”

  
“So can I.”

  
“Yeah, but having a werewolf or two around doesn’t hurt, right?”

  
Lydia scoffs and then is gone from his side wading through the kids and darkness to the employee exit she memorized the moment they entered leaving Stiles feeling like a raw nerve exposed in the void. His nifty anti-tracking spell had become a security blanket of sorts. The transfer of the spell from him to Lydia felt like a literal blanket being removed from him and tossed over her instead. Moving spells from one person to another is similar to adding an extension cord to another, it all came from the same source. Eventually, the more extensions that get added on would make the power weaker, one person over would not be that much of a power down. Lydia is a safe as Stiles can make her plus her banshee powers left her immune to most magic. He can’t say the same for everyone else inside the museum with him.

  
A defensive chill takes root in his veins while the sigils covering his skin burst to painful life creating an unpleasant dichotomy of sensations. Summoning up his power to the surface gives a confident swing to Stiles’ walk as he finishes the last few steps of the stairs into the main lobby. The frantic people milling around in opposition to the orders trying to be barked out by management and security never brush against him—instincts telling them to be careful of the monsters in the dark, making them flinch back and flutter around Stiles’ peripheral. It shouldn’t make him feel strong, that thought is as old as his tattoos.

  
It does, it always does.

  
He flexes some magical muscle, cringes at himself, and takes a breath to chill the fuck out so he can call Derek one more time. Focusing on the screen with more intent that it should have taken lights it up long enough to hit Derek’s name before going dark again. Not a soul notices Stiles’ magic, all of the faces being briefly lit by the single light source is downright eerie. His heart speeds up.

  
“Put me on speaker.” Stiles hears the slight change in sound, “I have it. Coming to you.”

  
“Peter has yet to return.” Deucalion points out.

  
“Yeah,” Danny chimes in, “Neither has Jackson, we’re gonna wait for them, right?”

  
“They’ll meet up with us later if they can’t. Either way they can watch our backs. Does no one listen when I talk?”

  
Disgruntled Danny says, “Derek does.”

  
Scuffling starts on the other end, Stiles rolls his eyes and hangs up, he thinks he hangs up anyway.

  
Cloaked in his own aggressive power Stiles parts the crowd in the dark, confidently striding to the exit doors. A few people are ignoring the warnings of management by pushing their way outside. They don’t sound surprised that it’s perfect daylight out there. Other than the kids everyone is in fact far too calm. At the doors himself Stiles discovers a resistance keeping him from causally grabbing the handle.

  
Mountain ash. A fuck ton of mountain ash.

  
Werewolves were anticipated. The ash could slow Stiles down too, but not stop him, not even the half a foot thick line on the ground could do that. Realty is that all they needed was to slow him down. The lights flash back on, the remaining people inside drop to the floor—puppets with their strings cut. They all fall. Except for four. Stiles remains standing and so does three other people.

  
He lets out as semi-disappointed breath. He had been expecting robes, forehead brands, or something, not… not baseball hoodies and fucking Chucks. Two of the standing are facing him, not vacant-eyed but rather hyper focused on him. Smoke tendrils the clean light grey color of burning sage drifts around Stiles emanating from his hands, the two staring men aren’t all that concerned with the threat. The last person, a woman, doesn’t bother to turn from the medieval artifacts she’s examining until Kira comes running from the other side the lobby, she skids to a halt at his side and pulls her belt into a sword in one fluid motion. Her kitsune aura flares in starts and stops around her.

  
“Bad guys?” She asks between breaths.

  
Finally getting a good look at the face of the woman makes Stiles’ retort to Kira die in his throat, he hesitates then asks, “Ms. Morrell?”

  
Marin Morrell cants her head slowly, her gaze is dark and glittering, horrifically amused. The clothes she wears look like she stripped them off someone’s clothes line and yet not un-similar to what Stiles would wear in his own home. She smiles and drums her fingers along the glass case next to her, “You don’t recognize us, little thieves?”

  
Stiles and Kira stiffen. Molasses is covering the gears in his head but it does all click for him. The smile, the deeper voice that is and yet is not Morrell’s, but more importantly a dark aura Stiles has never seen from his own perspective before. What was before them is Marin Morrell in body only.

  
Morrell sneers at the sword in Kira’s hands, the disgust melts into a manic grin, “We have been waiting. Not long. Long enough.”

  
The two men standing with Morrell open their mouths, a tad too wide for humans, releasing swarms of black flies. The flies find homes in the mouths of people laid out on the floor, the bodies spasm then rise.

  
Morrell doesn’t move but Stiles can hear her breathy voice clear as day whispering in his ear, “Did you miss us?”

 

 

  
tbc

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was going to be twice as long but I haven't updated in roughly ten thousand years. Thank you for the kudos and comments!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Teen Wolf fic despite watching the show since season one so of course I’ve got this loosely plotted sprawling mess planned now that the show’s almost over. It’s a wip so the updates are gonna be irregular. I always thought Jackson and Stiles were almost the same kind of asshole that just grew up in different environments and if it weren’t for that brutal fictional high school hierarchy they would have been friends. You know, kidnapping aside. Thanks for reading!


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